


The Green Witch

by Vita_S_West



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Complete, F/M, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Some angst, Strangers to Lovers, a medium amount of plot, i won't lie, the aesthetic is strong with this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23303413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_S_West/pseuds/Vita_S_West
Summary: Lucy moves to a strange town to escape her mother, forming new friendships and bonds. She is not out of danger and neither are her new friends or her new love, not with the looming threat of her mother…
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston, Jiya & Lucy Preston
Comments: 36
Kudos: 45





	1. A New Presence

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly all written (like half a chapter left to write)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy begins to rebuild her life, but must take into account an unexpected presence...

It wasn’t long after Lucy took her position at Ellesmere Cross University that she began to notice the tickling of a presence. She had not noticed it before, as during the interview, her nerves had been frayed and her concentration focused on seeming like a normal, if highly decorated professor in search of a change from her previous job. In her desperation to pretend everything was fine and suppress her lingering fears regarding her mother, Lucy had initially missed the peculiarity of her new surroundings.

On a cool day in early spring, only a matter of days after moving, Lucy had drifted past the Mortimer Crabtree Memorial Library, to Hawthorn Hall, where her office and the History Department were located, past the ghostly residence halls. Following a path leading from the quad, she looped around the commons clock tower of ivied brick and white spire. With an idea of getting to know her surroundings better, she had trekked across an overgrown field, one left feral in the absence of students or parents to judge it shabby. Beyond this field was the lonely edge of a road leading out of town. Lucy had followed it, thinking she would hike back to her lodgings, until she found the edge of the forest. 

It didn’t take her long to lose the buzz of passing trucks to the buzz of insects and the chirping of birds. Everything had been lusciously green. She had passed over thick tangles of roots stretching out from massive redwood trunks and through the freshly grown ferns and their deep scent. As Lucy’s feet sunk into thick moss, for the first time in several months, a sense of calm had overtaken her. 

It was with that brief breath, that she finally noticed something that soured her newly won sense of ease.

She had closed her eyes, tilted her face skyward, and accepted the caress of sunlight streaming through the trees. It was just her and a whole new world. She had done it. She had gotten a job and a place to live far from her old life, its constraints and dangers. There were the calls of mountain bluebirds and robins, flies and beetles. The rustle of alder leaves and spruce and douglas firs. A squirrel chewing a branch.

But something in the air shifted, almost as if it blew a little warmer. She wasn’t alone. The tension returned to her shoulders.

It caught her off guard. She was so invested in escaping her old world it hadn’t occurred to her that her new one may have its own peculiarities—its own perils.

She didn’t hurry home. Like any self-respecting witch, she wasn’t afraid of the forest. Besides, the presence didn’t scare her. It was old, but… almost aloof.

Even if she weren’t hiding from her mother and her mother’s coven—once _her_ coven—she would still have to be weary of this lonely, old force. She was herself, after all, also alone—for the first time. She had to be careful.

***

It had been a pay cut and somewhat of a demotion to go from Associate Professor at an Ivy League to Assistant Professor at a small liberal arts college. It was a liberal arts college that prided itself in providing a well-rounded study in the humanities, seeking not only to grant students a rigorous background in a chosen field, but insight into all disciplines of Western art, civilization, and thought. Lofty goals for so small a place. They were almost as proud of this aggrandizing goal as their newly inaugurated gender-neutral bathroom, which was in a building with no wheelchair access. 

The department secretary, Mrs. Branson, a kindly old lady with deep wrinkles and bright eyes, had grasped Lucy’s arm when she first arrived. “It’s so good to have some fresh blood in the department!”

There was no way for Mrs. Branson to know why her words filled Lucy with cold dread and there was no one for Lucy to tell. Even if she weren’t desperate to remain incognito, Lucy still could never imply that she was much older than she looked or how slowly she aged. 

The closest person to her age hadn’t been part of the department, but a post doc on a term position, who happened to be passing by to use the department’s photocopy machine. Jiya Marri’s background was in electrical engineering, but was well qualified and came highly recommended. The computer science department was hardly robust and with the academic job market being what it was, they eagerly made a marriage of convenience.

Lucy had smiled and greeted her warmly, but Jiya’s easy smile and cheerful invitation to lunch had made Lucy reluctant. There had been something in her joking manner that reminded her of Amy. That was still a wound that was far too fresh. 

It hadn’t taken Lucy long to sense a presence when she began to explore her surroundings and it wasn’t an unpleasant place. The campus was filled with red-brick and ivy-covered buildings. There was the lovingly, and accurately, nicknamed Swan Pond, the new, if somewhat garish Arts Building, and the Alumni Field, where many-a losing football game took place. 

At first she had felt mournful of the smallness of it all. There would be no avoiding anyone in so small a place. She saw the advantage of that the more she considered it. There would be nowhere for a stranger to hide. She would immediately spot anyone out of place quite easily. What was more, the department was so keen to hire her, such a big fish, it would be easy to fulfill their expectations and keep practising magic quietly. 

Ellesmere Cross University itself wasn’t far from the centre of town by the default that it was in town and there wasn’t much town to be near or far from. 

The town itself was small and unassuming. While its tourist brochures boasted nature walks, art and culture, in actuality, much of the so-called nightlife took place at the local bar and everything else in town shut up by nine—sometimes 8:30, if it was rainy. Mallard Park was two trails across a marsh and puddle pretending to be a lake. The Louis Stenfield House, a museum dedicated to the life of the local artist, was three rooms with very little of the sculptor’s art. The high school girl who worked there, however, proudly announced that he had painted the walls of the bathroom himself. The Town Heritage house was four rooms and had been shut due to other high school kids stealing heritage items and vandalizing the room. The university art gallery had been sufficiently explored in an afternoon and wouldn’t have any new exhibits until October. A little ways out of town was the Blues Barn. Lucy had walked in and then walked straight out.

She had halted her explorations from the town rather quickly with a thin sense disappointment, though no surprise. That wasn’t its purpose, she reminded herself. Lucy knew her melancholy was not brought on by the town, but by her mother and the loss of her sister.

***

In the weeks where spring warmed to early summer, Lucy began to settle into her job and her new house. Though “house” was a generous term. Wanting an affordable, but out of the way place, far from prying eyes, she took up a small, if somewhat disrepaired cottage on the edge of a meadow, shrouded by the vast forest. It was a transition Lucy found she could make easily, trading sounds of traffic for birdsong. Nobody around but her and the… well, it was all her own and she was beginning to like it.

One early morning, as the sky was still lit up with lurid colours, Lucy went out collecting mushrooms, lion’s mane and puffballs, and bitterroot and fireweed shoots. Near a clearing that she first mistook for another meadow, she spotted a red fox standing distinctly still. She lingered at the treeline, not wishing to disturb it. Slowly it turned its head to her and there was something languid in the movement. He wasn’t concerned by her.

Again, she felt that change in the air. It felt like tension growing before lightning strikes. The fox turned its head back to the opposite treeline and Lucy’s eyes fell on him for the first time.

He looked like an ordinary, if tall, man, but she wasn’t deceived. His hair danced in the breeze. He wore a black turtleneck that clung to a broad chest.

Slowly, Lucy raised a hand, so he would know she was friendly. He tilted his head to a side, considering her with a gaze that tickled her skin. As she carried on her way, carrying her basket, she heard the click of his tongue and knew the fox was following him.

***

The garden of her new cottage required a lot of attention. It had been very badly kept and had all run to seed, giving an impression of wild neglect in which the plants had been allowed to find the way of nature rather than of human cultivation. It was hard work, but she liked it. It filled her evenings as easily as water filled a cup.

The buzzing of bees filled the warm breeze, mingling with the smell of lavender, butterfly weed and dirt. Lucy’s hair was pulled into a high ponytail, tail end of which stuck to the back of her sweat-coated. She had dirt all the way up her arms and streaked across her face. 

With a new scent in the air—bergamot—she sensed him. Reaching into her basket for the spade she found the wrinkled flesh of a toad. It blinked up at her. She glanced around and while she could not spot him, she had known he was near. She took her new little friend inside. 

***

Lucy wasn’t sure if the toad had been a joke or a greeting or both. What else would a witch want, but a toad? 

All the same, it was good form to offer her own greeting. In the pale dawn, she set out with cream she’d bought fresh from a confused dairy farmer from a neighbouring county and bread she’d baked herself. She found the clearing in which she’d first found him, but kept going. He’d passed through that way but bore no stronger connection to it than her. Continuing through ferns and bracken, the sun streamed stronger through the pines and firs. It was a weak glow, coming after long rains. If anything, this sojourn would turn her into a green witch, she mused. Wouldn’t her mother hate that… 

It was nearing midday when she had found a decayed stump, moss covered, and receding into the forest floor. Ferns grew atop. There was an oddly exposed part, where the wood looked almost fresh. It bore the peculiar shape of what looked to be a child’s drawing. It was some sort of dog, a coyote or fox, Lucy would guess. 

She left the cream and bread, wrapped in cotton cloth, and strolled back home. 

He returned the cloth to her newly mounted clothes line the next day. Lucy smiled to herself as she took it inside. It was the weekend and as she hadn’t gone to town, she hadn’t spoken to anyone that day. While she remained weary of him, it filled her with an unexpected giddiness to be exchanging gifts.

It was an unexpected pleasure to be the subject of someone’s attentions—not that she would admit it. Nor did she have anyone to admit it to.

They carried on like this for a few weeks, as the summer solstice approached. He left her little gifts around the house and she returned the favour, on stumps or trees that bore those crude drawings. She found three during her wanders. 

With no difficulty Lucy purchased a bike from an elderly lady in town. In the process of buying the bike, the woman poured Lucy a cup of coffee and also offered to sell her eggs that the chickens in the backyard laid. Lucy graciously accepted both additional offers. Slowly, new habits and customs started to take place.

On the morning of the solstice, grey and overcast, Lucy took the bike to a new far edge of the forest and began to wander. She meant it to be a meditative walk, one to consider the many changes in her life. 

She had blocked her mother’s phone and email address and changed her number. While this had added a sense of safety it also made her feel so cut off from all the friends she’d left behind. She still had their numbers and they had her email, but the physical distance mixed with the emotional distance that came with not being able to explain the whole business with her mother… Lucy didn’t even know what to say. Besides, it was unlikely that it was safe to contact them.

The summer solstice marked the transition from the growing tide to the reaping tide. Pushed or not, Lucy was certainly reaping what she’d sown.

Through the pines, Lucy saw an oddity. Narrowing her eyes, she approached it steadily. 

It was a flat line of tombstones, rickety and carious, skewed at wild angles. They gave a hectic, uncanny impression. Almost like some powerful force had scattered them there moments before. 

The names and dates were faded, some to a point beyond recognition. Some stones were toppled and some crumbled. The site was old, from the 1850s. She had paused at the name of a child. Nine years old. What a sin. There must have been a town there, centuries ago. Lived and died and here Lucy was walking through it. It had seemed as good a place as any to sit and think. 

Closing her eyes, Lucy slowed her breathing. She had been hesitant in her spellcasting since leaving the coven. Her confidence had been shaken. It had been so long since she had cast without Amy that she hardly knew how to start anymore.

As the sun poked lazily through the clouds, it occurred to Lucy that there was an obvious and simple spell of renewal she could try. She didn’t need any candles or trinkets for this spell, just her.

It was a frightening thought at first, but only because Lucy could also see the power in it. She took another breath.

She imagined a thin green mist permeating around her, tickling her skin. She visualized breathing it in slowly, breath by breath until her lungs were filled with a verdant green energy. She felt her power slowly expand around her, until it began to meet and meld with the trees. Pressing her hands into the mossen earth, she had felt its energy. There was a strum of energy. 

A vitality. 

Lucy felt it flow through her, beckoned it through. With a sigh, she pulled herself back, returning to her in a swift wave. Smiling faintly, she stood to leave. 

Like one of the stones surrounding them, she found him when she turned, in the path from which she had come. His posture was stiff and angular. His eyes narrowed and there was a cold rage in them. For the very first time Lucy felt unease at the sight of him. 

“Warming up for the coven?” he remarked coolly. 

Lucy stumbled back a step as if he’d socked her. “Excuse me?”

“Your friends. I’m assuming there are more coming?”

Her heart pounded in her ears. She felt cold despite the gathering heat and humidity of the day. “Who told _you_ that?”

“I have eyes, don’t I?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re just making yourself at home is all.”

“This is my home,” she said. For better or worse…

“Mine too.” His eyes burned like embers but his voice had an intense chill to it. “If you’re bringing people—”

“Who told you?” she demanded, her voice rising. She hated the trace of fear in her voice. “Was It Emma? Who’s in town?”

He stared at her for a moment. He looked confused. “Nobody told me anything. I just know what happens to towns when covens of witches start descending and changing things. Changing the weather, the air, the water supply. People get sick and money gets harder.” He spoke softly, in a careful voice. He held his hands out, palms open.

He didn't want to fight, Lucy realized.

She had never heard an immortal being bemoan the economic situation of mortals. “Don’t trust everything you’ve read,” she said. 

“I trust what I’ve seen.” He indicated the tombstones surrounding them. His eyes were wide with ghosts. 

Lucy bit her cheek and nodded. “No one is coming,” she said, voice low. “Not if I can help it.”

He regarded her for a moment. “You’re alone for a reason.”

“As I expect you are,” she shot back. 

He nodded, lips thin. “I’m not running from someone, though.”

She had nothing to say to that. Her desire to deny it would be a lie and she had felt it unwise to tell a lie to such a being. So she turned away and walked back home, alone.


	2. To Make a House a Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lucy tries (and occasionally fails) several spells, several flawed coping mechanisms, and maybe makes a friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know I said I would do updates every Friday... I'll still be doing weekly updates but with the state of the world, I am finding it a tad hard to keep a consistent schedule and wait patiently to post...

Lucy read from a narrow volume, _A Spell to Make a House a Home_.

Her cottage had charm, but it was musty. It had mice. The roof leaked. Lucy was used to something, not luxurious, but certainly less disused. She hoped the spell would solve her problem. It seemed practical, simple even. It was the sort of thing she should have been able to accomplish with her eyes closed, while completing some other mundane chore. She should have been able to do it while having a drink—or two. 

It didn’t _quite_ work out that way. Lucy found herself hurling a steaming vat of grey liquid off the end of her front walk, where the garden met the meadow. 

The spell shouldn’t have been so hard and its failure became another unwelcome reminder of how things were different—and dangerous. If she couldn’t use her magic properly then how could she defend herself? 

Taking a deep breath, Lucy stared around her kitchen, at the mess of ingredients and disappointment. She would clean after a long walk in the woods, she decided.

The ground where she’d dumped the rancid liquid was still steaming. Upon closer examination, Lucy found that it had sunk a hole in the ground… one she would have to fill.

“Trouble with you witchery?” called an entirely _too_ pleasant voice.

In all her irritation, Lucy hadn’t sensed him, but there he was—the immortal, the spectre, the pain in her ass. He stood in her meadow, surrounded by wildflowers, with a wicked gleam in his eyes. She had an urge to go back inside and slam the door. Instead she kept walking, carrying her basket over her arm.

“Can I help you?” she asked, teeth gritted.

His lips quirked. “You’re staying.”

“Yes?”

“Alone?”

She passed from the path from her cottage into the meadow, stepping around the steaming hole, growing slowly nearer to him. Tall meadow grass, lupins and tarweed tickled her basket and swayed around them. He didn’t move, merely followed her with his eyes. 

“As you see me,” she said. She kept her voice cool in spite of his warmth.

He waited for her to say more but she didn’t. He nodded and turned to her cottage. “It’s nice here. Quiet. You’re making the best of it.”

Neither suggested what “it” was. He had to know, Lucy realized, that she was exiled. Somehow this annoyed her all the more. He could act like he knew her when he didn’t know a thing about her.

“Is there something I can help you with,” Lucy asked. She had never had trouble spellcasting before and her pride smarted because of it.

His smile slipped. “I wanted to apologize for before. You caught me off guard and I’m unused to company. It’s…” he paused, his tongue touching his bottom lip briefly before his voice fell so soft Lucy strained to hear, “been a long time.”

Lucy paused in spite of herself. She was even with him then, only a few feet separated them. She could see he was looking at her with wide, earnest eyes. There was a softness to them that, for some reason, Lucy suspected was not usually there.

“It’s nice of you to apologize, but it was thoroughly unnecessary.”

He blinked in confusion. “Unnecessary?” 

“Unnecessary. It’s best we don’t see each other, is all. We should keep to ourselves. This place is big enough that we should have no trouble avoiding each other. It’s for the best,” Lucy added, trying to keep her voice emotionless.

“Where’s this coming from?” he asked.

She squared her shoulders. _It was better this way._ “I don’t do friends. And this flirtation is...” She pressed her lips thin and kept walking.

“You’re happy alone?” he called after her.

She glanced back as she walked. “It’s better to be on my own. No complications!” _It was better to be alone_ , she repeated to herself. 

“You fall in love with lonely, Lucy,” he called, “you end up that way.”

He was gone when she turned back to ask how he knew her name. There was only wildflowers and tall grass swaying in the wind. She felt something akin to disappointment. She pretended not to have liked the way he said her name, a caress on his tongue. She pretended that she didn’t want him to do it again.

Lucy drew a tremulous breath and squared her shoulders. Spectre was inaccurate. He was more likely some sort of trickster and a nosy one at that. She had to keep going.

***

Lucy carried her solitude like a newly grown, awkward limb. One that she wasn’t sure how to carry gracefully or easily without pain or embarrassment. She would linger in coffee shops, while she read course material to pick assigned readings to perfect her syllabus. She liked the library, breathing in the dry dusty stacks. No one was supposed to talk there anyways. She found herself visiting the town’s aged movie theatre, where it was dark and soothing, alone in her seat amidst a thin and fleeting community. 

It was good to be alone, she decided.

***

_“Lucy, don’t go down, we’ll get in trouble.” “Amy, we have to know.”_

_“We’re going to raise the dead.”_

_“You fall in love with lonely, Lucy, you end up that way.”_

She poured another drink. Her brain was crowded with thoughts, so many that her head was pounding. Maybe there was a finite amount of space in bodies, one that could only be filled with so much tension, fear and guilt. Maybe if Lucy kept adding alcohol, those thoughts would be flushed out. Drowned.

Maybe if she kept adding alcohol her thoughts wouldn’t quite be so loud.

She took another swig, and tried the spell again. The clear, lemon-scented liquid that sat on her kitchen table began to bubble softly. Lucy’s features screwed up in concentration. She was closer this time. The potion began to smoke and then froth. It turned blood red.

Lucy tasted echoes of blood in her mouth. It turned a putrid brown and the surface of the liquid flattened suddenly. A thin plum of grey smoke rose, stinking of burnt hair.

She threw it with the others. _At this rate, I’ll erode the land straight to the bedrock,_ she thought, exhausted. She wished the earth _would_ swallow her whole.

***

In late July, sweltering heat and humidity, Lucy wandered out of Hawthorn Hall. She'd long given up on the home spell. Sweat already clung to Lucy’s back, like her irritation. She was thinking about cold showers when she nearly walked right into Jiya, whose arms were full of papers.

“Jiya!”

“Lucy, right?”

“Yes. Sorry, I was deep in thought.”

“You’re probably the only one.” The campus was practically deserted. It was only the two of them on the quad, across from the library, under the shadow of the clocktower.

Lucy chuckled. “It feels like I have the whole place to myself.”

“Making yourself at home?”

“Something like that… Still, it’s easy to find your way around because—”

“There’s not much to find your way through,” Jiya finished for her.

Lucy smiled, realizing that Jiya was very much in the same boat as her. She was new in town, didn’t have many friends and was trying to figure out a new job in an aging department.

“There are some good hiking trails,” Lucy said.

“I’ve been out biking once or twice, but the allergies are bad on my boyfriend. Rufus,” she added.

“How’s he finding it here?”

“Oh you know. Slow. We’re city folks and this is a bit—”

“Surreal?” Lucy ventured.

“I was going to say a bit of an adjustment. But that works too.” Jiya laughed. 

Lucy joined her, finding the laughter infectious. Her smile stretched her face with a twinge. How long had it been since she’d laughed with anyone? Pointing at the papers, she asked, “What’s this?”

“An unmitigated disaster,” Jiya said with a groan.

“Tell me.” She wanted to cut through her own solitude, Lucy realized. _You fall in love with lonely..._

“The library lost its only copy of a book on micro-electro-mechanical systems that I need. And inter-library loan’s out because we’re already supposed to have it, so I am unnecessarily low on a wait-list.”

“Bit early for course prep. You’re putting me to shame.”

“It’s for my boyfriend. He’s trying to finish his dissertation. He might be out of luck.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“Unless you are extremely lucky, or have hours to shuck through dusty shelves…”

“Sounds like you need a locating spell,” Lucy said thoughtfully.

“I’m sorry… spell?”

“Come on, I want to show you a magic trick.” Lucy nodded toward the library.

“You’re not serious.” Jiya gaped at her.

Lucy slowed her head start to give Jiya a grin. “Come on!” 

By the time that Jiya caught up with her, still sputtering, Lucy was crossing the dusty carpets of the librarian’s atrium. 

At her elbow, Jiya said loudly, “A _sp_ —” 

“Sh!” Lucy nodded at the library behind the front desk, who eyed them as they walked by.

Back, in the stale air of the stacks, Lucy stopped in the pale afternoon light of a high window and turned to Jiya.

“You’re not serious,” Jiya said. “Magic isn’t—you don’t _believe_ in this kind of stuff, do you?”

Jiya was a scientist. She needed facts and data and what better fact was there than an eye-witness account? 

“What’s the book called? And the author and edition,” Lucy added.

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“I’m going to find you your book, Jiya. If you can give me some information on it, that is. Don't you want to see something incredible?”

“You’re very committed to this bit,” Jiya said.

“I am. Now stop ruining my showmanship.” 

Jiya seemed to consider Lucy for a moment. _She probably thinks I’m insane,_ Lucy thought. But, shaking her head, Jiya pulled a sheet from her stack and handed it over.

It was a library printout and had all the information down to the ISBN number.

A locating spell… She was looking for a book in a four-storey library. Practically a needle in a haystack. What she needed was a magnet. No, she couldn’t have a book flying off the shelf and floating across the library. She could leave an offering, to see if there was a pooka about. That seemed a likely culprit. She could leave out something to eat or something pretty and then find the book in the same spot a few days later.

It could be nice and simple, unless there was no pooka.

They needed a path, Lucy realized. Rummaging in her pockets, she wished there were a strawberry tree nearby… The sacred tree of Hermes, god of lost things. _That_ would have done nicely. In her pockets was only the hawthorn she kept for protection and some heliotrope leaves. Those were good for clairvoyance, but they wouldn’t get the job done… What Lucy needed was clarity.

“Just a second!” she said and turned back toward the front of the building.

“Lucy, it’s a good joke, but—”

Lucy didn’t stay to hear the end of it. Growing in the corners of the flowerbed in front of the library were weeds, not unlike those in the meadow by Lucy’s cottage. She glanced through them, quickly finding what she was after.

She ripped up a goldenrod by its stalk and then twisted off its base. 

Turning to Jiya, she said, “Observe.” She rolled the library printout around its dirt-encrusted roots, with a few leaves for good measure. Lucy pulled out her lighter and Jiya sputtered a protest.

“Oh you can just print another!” 

But Lucy did feel a nervousness she was unused, almost like a stab of doubt. 

Glancing at Jiya, the anticipation in her eyes spurned an adrenaline rush. Lucy took a deep and stared at the rolled paper crumpled in her first. She thought of the books in the library, stacks upon stacks, and all the people—the scholars and students—who sat reading them, studying them, learning from them. She thought of all the knowledge and power that was accumulated in one dusty, stale-aired building with faded carpets, and felt—the slightest vibration. Like pulling a taut guitar string, Lucy heard the music.

She flicked the lighter.

The smoke that rose from the burning page was grey at first, then, with a sputter and a deepening of the vibration like a steady thrum, turned blue. It rose, spiralling slightly, then drifted towards the library doors.

“Let’s go,” Lucy said, following quickly.

“This is insane,” Jiya called after her, but Lucy could hear her footsteps following behind.

They took a detour along the wall to avoid the librarians and followed the smoke into a stairwell. They followed it past graffitied walls that bore aged posters reminding occupants to be quiet, no food and only drinks in covered containers and not to smoke.

They went up two flights and Jiya groaned, “Couldn’t we have taken the elevator?”

“The smoke said otherwise.”

“Oh the _smoke_ said,” Jiya muttered. But she stayed hot on her heels.

The smoke drifted through the door on the top floor and they followed through a maze of stacks in the hazy glow of the afternoon sun.

Next Alfred Lord Tennyson’s _Idylls of the King_ in a faded cloth-bound volume, at the bottom of a heavy cloud of blue, was _Multiphysics Simulation: Electromechanical System Applications and Optimization_ , thoroughly out of place.

Plucking it from the shelf, Lucy handed it to Jiya with a pleased smile.

“ _Satis_ ,” Lucy said to the flame. The smoke dissipated, leaving a faint smell of meadow grass.

Jiya started from the book to Lucy and back again. “So… magic,” Jiya said slowly. 

“I can tell we’re going to be friends,” Lucy said. 

Jiya didn't react, her eyes were trained on the book and for a second Lucy thought she’d made a mistake, been too forward, revealed too much.

“Rufus is going to be so happy. Because of the book,” Jiya said suddenly. 

“No problem,” Lucy said. She began to turn to leave, thinking it was surely better to be alone.

“Thank you,” Jiya said, her voice rising. “Do you want to get lunch tomorrow?”

Lucy blinked. “Oh, I…”

“We can do it another time if you—”

“No, tomorrow is fine! I-I look forward to it.”

***

Helping Jiya made Lucy realize why the house spells weren’t working. She had been pulling from blood magic, while having rejected her kin and coven and the loss of power of her coven wasn’t all she’d lost. The house she’d been thinking, the home in her mind, as she drew power for the spell, was one she’d been running from.

In the graveyard, she’d only been concentrating on herself. At the library she’d pulled from the place, its history and its stories.

Lucy had to make her own now. Her own home too.

***

No matter how far Lucy walked in the woods, no matter how long she looked for him, there was no sign of the trickster nor any hint of bergamot. She was getting to know the land well, but he still knew it better and knew enough to avoid her. She realized if she wanted to see him, she would have to call a truce. She still didn’t know his name, an ignorance that irritated her more than she would admit.

Finally, she left some cream, along with an eagle’s feather, on one of his tree stumps, as the grey sky turned darker and rain threatened to fall. 

Her roof would leak, she realized with a groan. 

When she arrived home, she found him in her front garden, looking at the rows of tomatoes, squash and beans.

“Hello.” She was more surprised than hesitant. 

He turned to her, offering a smile as a greeting. “Thanks for the cream.” He held the jar out to her. It was empty.

“How’d you get back here before me?” she demanded. As she took the jar, her hand caught his and she felt a cascade of shivers drift down her spine.

He shrugged. Enigmatic as a trickster, he certainly was. He turned to leave with only a nod .

“Wait,” she said to him. He turned back with a raised eyebrow. “Do you want some tea?”

***

Lucy understood why he’d tried to leave. From the spot where her roof leaked, hung an origami bat. He stood in the doorway as she pulled it from its string.

“Did you make this?” Lucy said, eyebrows raised.

“I’m a man of many talents.”

“Is ‘man’ even the correct term?” she shot back. She didn’t wait for an answer, as she knew he wouldn’t give one. “I see breaking and entering is another talent.”

“Actually, Lucy, this is the first time I’ve been in your home. I always wait until I'm invited.”

“Really?” she challenged. “Did you ask one of the mice to help you?”

“Something like that,” he said. He didn’t look like he was mocking her. Lucy thought of the fox that followed him. “Have you thought of getting a cat? Maybe a black one?”

“Oh very funny.”

He smiled at her, pinning her with an intense gaze. It was one she didn’t dislike. It was the kind of the look that invited possibilities.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said finally, when she couldn’t bear for the silence anymore.

“Flynn. Garcia Flynn.”

It was an odd name, almost an amalgamation. Lucy would be surprised if it was his first name and not one that he had acquired over time and come to prefer. She turned to make tea, suddenly remembering the politeness.

“You don’t want to be here,” he said. Not a question.

“I’m… I’m getting used to it.” She got cups out of the cupboard, eager to do something with her hands. Eager not to look him in his eye. She knew he was following her every movement.

“Am I allowed to ask—”

“It’s complicated,” she said shortly.

“I have time. Plenty. I'm probably the only one in the vicinity who has more than you.”

He was right, and she knew it.

She finally turned around. “It doesn’t mean you’ll understand.”

“No,” he admitted, quietly. “But I want to. And I thought…”

He thought she wanted him to. 

And she did, she realized. She’d left him the cream. She just didn’t want to explain it. She wanted him to look into her eyes and _know_.

That was always how it had been with Amy. She and her sister had done everything together. And here Lucy was in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with a not-technically-a-man, called Garcia Flynn. There was an honesty and a kindness in his eyes though. He regarded her softly and it had been so long since anyone had looked at her like that. She wanted him to stay.

***

It was too much, too heavy, to tell him everything at once. Nor was she ready to admit everything. So, she abbreviated and, slowly, unburdened her soul. 

She told him about running from her mother and her mother’s coven. She told him that her mother had wanted her to commit unspeakable evils and that if she didn’t, then her mother would commit unspeakable evils to her. She told him about her desperation to keep her freedom. She told her that it wasn’t just her freedom at stake, because the game her mother was playing had nearly cosmic implications.

He listened, his gaze unwavering. He sat across from her in her kitchen, his knee resting warmly against hers. He looked at her like he saw every part of her. He looked at her softly, unflinching and it felt warm and sweet to be looked at like that. To be listened to so patiently.

She had yet to tell him, though, about Amy or the murder. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter!  
> pls note that "you fall in love with lonely you end up that way" is a Bruce Springsteen lyric from "Hello Sunshine"


	3. Ouroboros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Flynn and Lucy cast a spell and get some quality hang-out time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a slightly shorter one, because the next two are a little longer.

It was in the waning summer that Lucy sat in the dirt at the edge of her garden, burying a protective charm made of birch and pansies, tied together with twine and soaked in dragonsblood oil. The breeze was a warm one, but she could smell the hints of fall in it—a cold one. 

Looking across the wildflower-filled meadow, she watched the shadow-cast forest. Idly, she wondered when Flynn would be back. She felt an odd sense of possession of him, though she knew she shouldn’t. While she wanted to see him, he wasn’t one to be summoned. Like a wayward cat, he would come back when hunger or boredom drove him. Immortal beings were never in any hurry, not like Lucy was. 

The charm wasn’t to ward _him_ off. With her birthday advancing she felt some urgency to see him. Not to celebrate, but to beg for a favour. She needed to ask for reinforced protection to keep her mother at bay. 

Lucy stood up and dusted off her knees. Passing by the orange honeysuckle and dwarf roses lining the path, she returned to her cottage, slipping off her shoes and washing the dirt from her hands in the kitchen sink. Pulling open a drawer, she reached for a hand towel and found something cold and scaly. Yanking her hand back, she stared into the open drawer. A small white snake lay twisting among her hand towels.

“It’s a common garter snake,” drawled a voice behind.

Spinning around, she found Garcia Flynn leaning against the white door frame that led to the living room. His dark eyes were alight with amusement. He looked at home, leaning there, his dark turtleneck contrasting the pale yellow walls of her kitchen. Lucy felt a thrill at the sight of him, one that mixed with relief and a genuine happiness. It was good to see him.

But she still glanced from him to her bedroom door—still shut. 

He saw the shift in her eyes and his lips quirked. “Lucy, please, I am a gentleman,” he protested. He looked quite pleased with himself.

She neither agreed, nor disagreed and indicated the snake instead. “It has albinism?”

He nodded. “Took quite a while to find,” he said pointedly.

No wonder he was pleased with himself. He’d been hard at work, she supposed. The thought excited her at first—that he thought so highly of her that he would go so far out of his way. It then occurred to her that someone like this—doing such a favour—he would undoubtedly ask something in return. She dismissed those thoughts for the moment, considering that, being an immortal trickster, this whole thing was probably a simple game for him.

“I take it you know a spell?” he said.

It was a game. He wanted to know if she knew the answer. Glancing back at the snake, she furrowed her brow. 

Snake skin was usually employed in transfiguration or transformation spells. But this was a live snake. It was also bleached of pigment, so it was an oddity in and of itself. An unusual purpose for a snake. And her goal… She was looking for protection, sealing up her property. 

“An ouroboros,” she said after a moment. “With so small a snake?”

“Would you like me to fetch a boa from a zoo?”

She believed his offer was genuine.

“No, no, that won’t be necessary.” 

She felt embarrassed, but her next urge was to confess to him that she’d never charmed an ouroboros before. She wasn’t even entirely sure what balance she needed to strike when using a snake in a protection charm. Typically cold-blooded animals had a little more to do with destruction, impulse, or desire. Ouroboros was life and death, the beginning and the end. There were beliefs that a snake, an anaconda, encircled the world, connected by its mouth and tail. Flynn was suggesting an unending loop of protection.

“I’ll need something to anchor it. Probably an alder. They’re good for protection,” she said.

“Also for communication.”

Lucy gave him a look. She’d told him plenty, what more could he want to know? Hands raised, Flynn took a step back into her living room. There was only the soft hiss of the snake and the chirp of crickets outside.

She closed the snake in the drawer and turned to get back to work.

“Do you mind if I watch you work?”

“Not at all.”

***

She thought at first he would get in the way but he kept a fair distance, merely watching her movements intently. She pulled out a few leather bound volumes from the stack on her coffee table, _Common Uses of Uncommon Herbs_ , _Correct Usages,_ Isaac Hollandus’s _Complete Alchemical Writings_ and the like. She preferred to go back to the basics for something more complicated than add unnecessary and possibly destructive flourishes. 

Luckily, her herb stores were plentiful. In the age of the internet, most things remained at her fingertips, though they certainly weren’t as fresh as if she were to go out into the mint patch and cut stalks in the very moment. She pulled out banewort and valerian, as they did much of their work internally. 

“What’s that?”

Glancing at Flynn, she saw he pointed at her herbs. There was genuine curiosity painted on his features. 

“That willow bark. A tea made from it can ease pain and loosen an aching joint.”

“And that?”

“Birch oil. Also good for easing pain. And those are dried birch leaves. They make a good tea that grants a dreamless, healing sleep.”

He nodded, his brow furrowed, as if in deep concentration. Lucy was getting more and more used to green magic. She found herself drawing on blood magic and darker forces with less frequency. She felt better when she didn’t use it, like she was putting distance between herself and her mother, like she was putting her mother’s wishes far behind her.

Several minutes passed, as Lucy decided a paste would be best applied to the snake’s head and tail. That way she didn’t have to worry about charming it into taking a potion or forcing a funnel into its mouth as she had seen her mother do once. It kept the spell simple, and limited to one incantation. 

“They are of no use now?” Flynn asked. 

She blinked at him, before realizing he was still looking at the tree fragments. It occurred to her that perhaps his original form was not fox or coyote or crow, or any of the other typical animals trickster forms originated, but a tree. 

“Am I distracting you?”

“A little,” she admitted, but smiled. She liked the company, much in the same way he did. There were not many powerful creatures of any amount of magic around. He craved her company as she craved his. 

Thankfully, he didn’t point to the silver locket laying alone, untouched by the other ingredients and tools. Perhaps he already knew its origin. That it had been her mother who had first laid it around her neck, as she had so many demands and judgments. Lucy had thought it was one of a kind, not knowing that the pattern inscribed on its front was one of seven.

“I’m not using them because this requires herbs of power and knowledge. These are herbs that can hurt or heal.”

“What decides that? Intention?”

“That. But on a more technical level, proportion and measurement.”

“Ah. Your magic borders on the mathematical.”

“When I handle and manipulate the life of a living being, absolutely.”

She didn’t want to let him know how nervous she was, but now he knew.

"You know both a lot about magic and not a lot," she mused. He could recommend an unusual use of an ouroboros for a protection spell, but the individual uses of herbs were a curiosity.

"I've been around a while," he conceded. "I may not personally practice magic, but I have a general understanding. I've seen... many things." His voice took on a softer quality as he trailed off. She supposed that when your life stretched out long enough to contain several iterations, you picked up a wide collection of knowledge with a range of depth.

The material of the spell was mostly measuring, grinding with mortar and pestle, weighing, considering, checking consistency, and sensing the power of the mixture, and then, beginning anew when she didn’t like the first result. She found herself adding a pinch of cumin in the second round, not for flavour, but for antitheft and protection. 

But it wasn’t just technical details she would be mastering and she knew it. There was emotion in all magic, even if Lucy had become a little more hesitant to draw on her own.

Flynn’s watchful gaze faltered by early evening, as the light through the windows softened and Lucy turned on the overhead light. He strolled around the small kitchen, not like a tightly constrained bull, but much lighter, like a leaf on a gentle breeze. He glanced at the mint and garlic hanging from pegs on the wall and perused the jars and canisters of herbs and incense along her counter-tops. Briefly, as he stared out the window, past the blue gingham curtains, the silhouette of his head was framed in delicate evening light. His dark hair shone warm like charcoal. 

He didn’t seem bored, merely curious. He glanced at her bedroom door more than once. He seemed content to take in her home in the most minute detail. While she had found him there, perhaps he had not been poking over her things as if they were his own. He was an odd trickster—if he was a trickster. 

“There,” Lucy said. 

She had Flynn’s full attention once more. 

Returning to the drawer, she removed the snake and laid it softly on the kitchen table and began to work her magic. 

Humming, Lucy drew the mixture from the mortar, not laying a finger or a spoon on it, but drawing it forth through the air, and onto the snake, at the head and the tail. 

For this kind of spell work there wasn’t a set incantation in Latin or Sumerian. It had more to do with instinct and sensing and _knowing_. It was being able to describe the indescribable and name the unnamable. She called upon Hecate and went to work. 

It felt different. 

Maybe it was her fear, palpable. She didn’t usually cast from fear. 

Lucy’s hand twitched and the snake rose, stutteringly, into the air. 

Her magic felt like a heavy wet veil on that day, clinging to her skin. She tried to extend it, exert it, but it stuck faster. She pulled again. At first only extending the barest amount, like water droplets tapping the snake. It was different, casting alone, without a coven.

Gradually, she pried it from her own aura and stretched it across the table, onto the suspended snake. The mouth lay separate from the tail. It wasn’t enough. She had seal it like the cracks of a ship. 

The snake blinked languidly. Concentrating, she began to whisper. She felt a breeze through the kitchen, though all the doors and windows were shut. 

The snake began to hiss, its mouth widening. Lucy kept pushing. Another almighty hiss came, this one sounded angry. A cupboard door slammed. She gave more of a shove and then, as if catching a latch, the snake took its tail into its mouth. 

***

She sighed with relief. She’d managed it in the end. Sinking down to the balls of her feet, she rested her forehead on the edge of the tabletop. 

“All right?” 

Flynn was crouched beside her, concern painted across his features. His hand hung in front of her face as if he were reaching out to touch her but then thought better of it.

“I’m fine. It worked.”

It had. Her mother would be banished from the vicinity. That was one worry solved. 

He reached out again, this time with more certainty. He took one of her hands in his and wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulling her upwards. She let him support her and lead her to a chair. His warmth warmed her as she suddenly realized how cold she was. He lowered her down gently, but his hand didn't leave hers. He crouched in front of her, his eyes searching hers while he cradled both her hands in his.

"It's done," she said.

He nodded, squeezing her hands softly before straightening. He was standing straight before he finally let go of her hands.

The larger problem still remained. While Carol Preston could not approach Lucy, her intentions still remained. The difference now was that Lucy would not be able to leave the safety of town. It was a new imprisonment. 

Perhaps a new freedom too, Lucy hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you're all doing well <3


	4. Dust to Dust

With extra protection reinforcing her house and emanating across the town, Lucy began the school year with a renewed sense of calm. Classes starting meant a new cast of characters, both in the form of new and returning students and the professors who had absconded for the entire summer, answering to no one—save their publishers.

The quad and hallways were crowded and alight with all manner of sights and personalities. Outside the Ackroyd Building, first year classics students poured out libations, while wearing togas and chitons made of bedsheets. They chanted in Greek so poor that Lucy briefly thought they were trying to speak Polish. The entrance to her building was blocked by two English majors loudly reciting  _ Othello _ to each other. 

Lucy was happy to settle into the term. Her small classes were filled with unusually boisterous students and she found discussion periods ran themselves, especially with the upper years. The first and second years needed a little more guidance to stay on topic. 

It wasn’t that she thought her troubles were over; it was that she thought she merely had newer, smaller ones.  Lucy enjoyed picking them apart and laughing over them with Jiya, who had her own irritations—sometimes with students, sometimes with Rufus—on their weekly lunch dates. As the summer had progressed, Lucy had found herself spending more and more time with them. It was over backyard barbecues and late night drinks that Rufus became her friend too. He even joined them for lunch occasionally.

It was on her way to see, following a tutorial, that she found a bouquet of hellebores hanging from her office doorknob. Her heart stuttered and a chill filled her bones. 

She was late to meet them. She interrogated her office neighbours and the department secretary, trying to find out who left it, but no one had seen anything. Mrs. Branson suggested that it was a welcome to campus gift, or perhaps Lucy had a secret admirer. 

When Lucy received gifts they were from Flynn and they were always left in a place or manner so as to demonstrate that he was the sender. This was different. This was a threat. 

She went to meet Jiya and Rufus at a local café across from the art gallery, her stomach tight with knots. They sat inside with plates of steaming food, watching the light drizzle. Lucy barely noticed the damp.

“You alright?” Jiya asked, jumping to her feet, her brow creased with worry.

Lucy tried to smile but it was more of a grimace. She sat heavily and Jiya followed suit, still regarding her friend with concern.

“Was it the students or the faculty this time?” Rufus asked. “I think this place does alcohol.”

“Rufus, it’s one o’clock!” Jiya said.

“Hey, if she gets weird looks I’ll just join.”

Lucy snorted in spite of herself.

“What happened?” Rufus asked, his voice softer. That was the thing about him and Jiya. They were sarcastic and loved to snark, but they knew when to drop the sharpness and react with kindness.

“Someone left me this on my office doorknob,” Lucy said, putting the bouquet on the table between them.

Rufus and Jiya exchanged looks.

“Could it—maybe it was a present,” Rufus suggested.

“A poisonous plant is not a friendly greeting,” Lucy said.

“It’s poisonous?” Jiya asked.

Lucy nodded and Rufus asked, “What is it? I mean does it have any specific, like,” his voice dropped and he leaned forward slightly, “like, any magical significance or properties?”

“Just about everything has _some_ magic properties,” Lucy said. “Typically, they’re used to cause madness. Or just to kill. They were used by the Greeks during the Cirraean War to poison the city's water supply. This is a warning, at best. A threat, at the worst.”

“And you’re sure it couldn’t be Flynn?” Jiya asked. She had been over at Lucy’s cottage and had seen the toad and the snake. She knew about him, but had yet to meet him.

“No. It’s a game for him and he usually uses it as an excuse to come and see me. Besides, he’s never been to the university before,” she added.

“Could it be your mother?” she asked.

This required more thought before its dismissal. Lucy would have been able to tell if the protection spell broke. “I would have… been able to sense her,” Lucy said finally. She wasn’t certain when she began to speak, but she was by the end of the sentence. She shook her head. “It couldn’t have been her. But…”

“But?” Rufus asked.

“It could have been Emma.”

“I’m guessing Emma is also a, uh,” Rufus glanced over his shoulder before whispering, “a witch?”

“I don’t think anyone is eavesdropping,” Jiya said. With the lunch rush, the lone waitress was practically run off her feet and there was enough background conversations to drown out theirs entirely.

“I’m just being careful,” Rufus said. “Lucy doesn’t want to draw attention to herself.”

“Thank you for being careful,” Lucy said, a smile forming on her lips. “Yes, she’s a witch. And to say that there’s bad blood between us would be an understatement.”

“Sounds like a likely candidate. What would she want?” Jiya said.

“A possible candidate… She’s more likely to set my house on fire than leave flowers, though.”

“Ah.”

“The flowers sound better,” Rufus said. “Not great, but in terms of symbolically threatening flowers versus arson… I know which  _ I’d _ rather.”

“I just don’t get why it’s so small. She could do so much more damage,” Lucy said, rubbing her temples. 

“Maybe that’s the point,” Jiya said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s driving you crazy,” Jiya said. “But it’s just a bouquet. I mean,” she added quickly when she could see Lucy begin to protest. “It’s a threat, but it’s not like that Flynn guy who leaves you presents in and around your house. It’s in public. A ways away from where you cast your spell. And now you’re beating yourself up trying to figure out what it means, but maybe it doesn’t actually mean anything. Maybe it’s only meant to scare you.”

“They’d do more though,” Lucy insisted and then realized, “if they could…”

“You said so yourself,” Jiya said, “your mother and Emma want to do a lot worse to you.”

“The spell is holding, but they still want to flush me out…”

“And they’re trying to freak you out,” Jiya finished.

“The pipe is not a pipe,” Rufus said, “but maybe the flowers are just… you know, flowers.”

Lucy smiled and her shoulders slackened as she let go the bundle of nerves knotted up in her stomach. 

“Thank you, you two for…”

“Hey,” Rufus said, “it’s what friends are for.”

***

On a cloudy, fall weekend, Lucy dressed warmly in jeans and a thick knit sweater and headed for the woods. She had made it through the early weeks of teaching, meetings and campus life, trying to forget the hellebores. Mostly she could convince herself that Jiya and Rufus were right, but occasionally doubt crept in. They covered her thoughts with a dull tinge of anxiety, slowing them, like rust on metal. 

Part of her, a larger part than she wished to admit, hoped to see Flynn. She’d barely seen him since the snake. It had felt like a new kind of intimacy when he had watched her practice magic. He saw a part of her most people never did. 

Among the massive firs and pines, tinges of foliage rusted and yellowed. The ground was soft and spongy from recent rainfall and the morning mist was slow to dissipate. 

Lucy didn’t have a clear plan in mind, merely the promise of a wander, away from drafts of assignments and course lecture notes. 

Through a copse of trees, came a large figure standing so still Lucy almost missed it. A deer stood between two trees, it’s nose moving slightly. Abruptly, Lucy halted as she understood the picturesque stillness of the scene before her. Both she and the deer stared at each other as tree branches creaked and birdsong twittered around them.

Slowly, the deer turned. With a pause, it gave a lingering backwards glance and began to walk. It wanted her to follow, Lucy realized with some wonder. She walked quickly to catch up. When she saw the deer again, it held that same queer posture, standing stalk still, it’s head slightly turned to look at her. As Lucy approached, it started walking again. 

They repeated this several times. The deer would pass from Lucy’s view and when she came forward, it would drift forward. They never came within fifteen feet of each other, moving like an elastic bound them together, loosening and then pulling taut as they weaved through the trees. 

Lucy knew the woods well by then, but she still wasn’t sure where they were headed. At first, she thought they were heading for the abandoned graveyard before they veered off course. 

At last,nthey came to the edge of a clearing, when the deer no longer stopped and sprung off, promptly disappearing. Confusion descended on Lucy, until she saw it—a tree. It wasn’t as tall as its neighbours, but it was still 30 meters with a wide trunk. A black alder. 

Approaching it slowly, she reached out, gently laying her hands onto the bark. It was dark grey and fissured. Old. Ancient even. The living branches were smooth, if somewhat sticky, and scattered with resinous warts. The dying branches were covered in long lines of mushrooms. The leaves were short stalked and rounded, but glancing up wasn’t what caught Lucy’s eye. Along the trunk were scatters of aged carvings. Children’s drawings of what could have been a fox. A trio of stick figures. And a heart with the initials GF and LS in the centre. 

She knew he was there without smelling the bergamot. 

“I figured you must have been a tree. I wouldn’t have guessed alder though,” she said

“I believe Daiad is the preferred term,” he said. “But I hardly have a preference.”

She turned to face him. He stood, tall and lean, smiling vaguely in the soft rays of light. She smiled back. He was giving her quite the gift. But something tugged at the back of her mind. Something that didn’t allow the smile to form completely.

Turning back to the tree, she traced the engravings carefully. “You’re GF but who is LS?”

“My wife.”

Lucy’s heart did something funny, teetered with confusion and disappointment. “Where is she?”

“In the graveyard you found a few months ago. Or her body at least. The soul, well, that’s a little trickier.”

Lucy felt her spine straighten. That explained how territorial he had been. Her fingers found the three stick figures. There was a small one in the middle of them. “You had a child?”

She didn’t turn back to face him and he didn’t approach. 

“Iris.”

“What happened?” she asked, her voice low. 

“What always happens with humans.” There was a hard edge to his voice. Mournful. “They talk about how humans are like flares in the night, extinguished so quickly. We never talk about how bright and vivacious they are…”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. 

He cleared his throat and this time she did turn. He was turned away slightly, watching the trees, not looking at her directly, but out of the corner of his eye. 

“It was a long time ago. I know they’re at peace. It’s just been a while,” he said, “since I’ve talked about this with anyone. I’ve gotten used to my loneliness, like a second skin.” His eyes found hers. They burned deep like embers. His voice remained low, but carried through the distance, as if on a current. “I think you have too. I think you’ve been lonely too long.”

Lucy had lived so long in a comfortable, self-imposed obscurity, as if she had doused every light that she had passed, carefully and conscious of the consequences. And when she saw people approach she moved aside so that they would never know how close they were to her. Flynn’s words felt like a flash, not like lightning but more dangerous. Like he’d flicked a switch, destroying the comfortable oblivion with a blinding long denied revelation. Her instinct was to reject this. To snap at him and offer a barbed insult. 

But her fingers tingled with the extended contact with the tree's bark and the wordless stories engraved upon it. The stories of Flynn’s early life and love. He had first turned the light upon himself before daring to illuminate Lucy. 

“I think you’ve been lonely too long, too,” she murmured. 

She wasn’t sure who started to walk first and who fell into step with who, but they found familiarity easily and kept going. They spent the day on a meandering wander, weaving through the trees as they did through stories and conversations. He gestured as he spoke and his dark eyes shone as he listened. He had a laugh that made Lucy laugh. 

The day slipped away like leaves from a tree and the only thing Lucy regretted was that there was only so much time in it.  As evening crept in, they drifted back through the meadow, up Lucy’s front walk and onto her doorstep. 

It was the natural breaking point for the day, for a goodbye, but a disappointment sunk into Lucy’s stomach. It was echoed in Flynn’s features and suddenly the distance between them seemed foolish. She leaned forward, rising onto tiptoes, and took his face in her hands. He answered her touch, his fingers finding her neck, pushing into her hair, as her mouth slid over his.

It was a long, lingering kiss, one that spoke to a deep temptation that thrummed between them.  Kisses that began in exploratory politeness deepened to something needier, something excited.

Her hands slipped away briefly to shove the door open before yanking him through.


	5. The Dead

Flynn came around more often, usually in the evening, usually staying the night. Lucy would find herself smiling, waiting eagerly for his arrival as she cooked or worked. She found it difficult to keep the smile from her face. Sometimes during the day, her mind would wander and she’d find herself thinking of him. A smile always came unbidden.

Jiya took to teasing her and Lucy wondered if it was time for the different parts of her life to meet. 

It was early on a cold, grey evening and as she began preparing supper that she wondered if Flynn would need any convincing. Jiya and Rufus were humans and while his past seemed to suggest no prejudice, he was highly reclusive. 

He interrupted her thoughts. He never knocked and the creak of her front door raised another smile to her lips. He joined her as she began to peel and cut carrots for soup, giving her a kiss and his own smile as he did.

“Need help?” he asked. 

“Yeah, get some garlic and ginger and peel them, will you?”

She indicated the drawer and he let out a chuckle. Glancing over, she saw Ernest. “Oh you remember him?”

“I do.” Carefully, he lifted the toad from the drawer and laid him on the counter. “Is he okay there?” He looked very cautious, considering that this was the first gift he’d given her. 

“Ernest? Yes, he makes his own way.”

They worked in silence for a few minutes before Flynn let out an exclamation. A sharp smell of mold tinged the air. Lucy whirled around. An entire bulb of garlic had gone green and squishy. 

“Here,” Lucy said, a forced lightness to her tone. “Let me get another one.”

From the garlic hanging from the ceiling, Lucy pulled out two more bulbs. Each was as mouldy as the first. 

“Maybe it’s just a bit old,” Flynn said. 

“I just pulled this out of the garden last week.” Her mind was no longer in the kitchen, it was on her office door, the hellebores. “This is Emma.”

“Who?”

“Emma…”

“Who is Emma?”

“An enemy.” Lucy’s voice sounded far away. 

“From your coven?”

She blinked then nodded. 

She had told him about the coven and her mother, to a certain extent. She had been reticent about details, but he was smart. He could interpret. 

“I suppose you did a spell to keep your mother out, but it doesn’t extend to everyone in the coven?”

“So it seems. She left me flowers last week. Poisoned flowers,” she added when she saw his expression.

“Is this some sort of a threat?” he asked.

Placing the rotted bulb on the counter, she sighed and picked up Ernest absentmindedly. She began to pet him. 

“I never… I never told you that I had a sister, did I?” she began.

“No… you only mentioned your mother and her coven.”

“Our coven,” she corrected on instinct. “Or, it used to be… Growing up surrounded by witches, knowing the human world as secondary, you get used to magic. How it could be a help or a hindrance. How it held great power and great danger. I remember when I was very young, before Amy was born, my mother got carried away with a spell. She was so caught up in it, she barely noticed what she’d released in the house.

"There's always a danger to magic and Amy isn't a child, but..."

"She's in danger," Flynn guessed.

“In the way that we're _all_ in danger."

"Lucy, what does that mean?" he asked.

Lucy sighed. "It wasn’t her they needed. She doesn’t have the right birthday.”

“The right birthday?” 

She nodded. “The spell the coven wanted to perform, or the upper echelon of the coven, that is, is very particular. It’s the forty-ninth birthday that matters. Seven sevens. It’s quite significant.”

Witches aged differently from humans. Slower. He didn’t blink at her age. By his standards that was still quite young. 

“She’ll have to leave too though,” Lucy said.

“Will that be easy? You ran away.”

“It wasn’t easy for me to run,” Lucy said. “I couldn’t tell her. There wasn’t time. I just left.”

He was starting understand. “That's why you don't talk about her. You feel guilty."

Lucy nodded, her throat tight.

"I’m guessing something was rotten with your coven.”

Lucy laughed and it sounded ghastly. “Rotten is putting it mildly.”

“What happened?”

“A friend of ours, a member of the coven was meant to do a ritual, a relatively simple ritual. The circumstances were… odd.”

“Odd?”

“He was decapitated.”

“Ah. I would suppose that even for witches, that is unusual.”

“Especially for our coven. We don’t meddle in curses or deep powers around blood magic. Or so we thought.”

She fell silent, considering the complicated immensity of what had happened. It felt like it had been decades ago rather than months. 

“Start from the beginning?” he suggested. His voice was as soft as his eyes.

“There had been a ceremony that we hadn’t been invited to. It was for fully fledged members who had passed through various trials and sworn allegiances." She waved her hand. It hardly mattered now. "A friend of ours had been sent for to prove himself. To become a full member. It didn’t quite go according to plan… It should have been routine. You go in. You pass some trials, swear a blood oath, there’s some chanting and binding spells, then it’s a celebration. But there wasn’t a celebration and the funeral was scheduled for the next day with no time to answer questions. Amy and I went looking for answers.”

***

It had been Amy who had discovered that Ian had been decapitated. She’d overheard Emma talking. Questions had been brushed aside and ignored. Answers had been elusive and confusion reigned in those twenty-four hours following Ian’s death. No one had been allowed near the body. Emma had been short-tempered and mocking. More so than usual. She had been distressed and prickled with fear. 

The coven kept a large house on the edge of town. As their mother was the head of the coven, despite not technically being full members, Lucy and Amy lived there. They tended to keep to the upper floors, while most of the coven business took place on the first floor and in the basement. 

It was following the departure of Emma and another member that Lucy saw an opening. With no one looking, she sprinted down the creaking basement stairs. The air smelled strongly of cloves and chives and smoke. There were no electric lights in the basement, so the vast space was illuminated by candlelight. Lucy passed through the antechamber quickly. It had nothing of note, just hooks and robes and cloaks, with some dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. Lucy had planned to go to the large circular room at the centre of the house. It was home to the massive black cauldron and much of the more dangerous spell books were kept.

In the second room, however, Lucy found what was left of her friend. On the vast table lay a body, wrapped in black cloth, a wide circle of candles and onyx stones encircling it. 

While she knew she didn’t have much time, she still had trouble making herself move fast. She felt shaky and disjointed as she approached the table with an almost overwhelming feeling of dread. She drew back the cloth. 

Shock struck Lucy like a blunt instrument and her throat emitted a choking noise before she was aware of it. His eyes were closed, but a thin line of blood from his mouth prevented her from applying any of the old cliches about looking like he was asleep. His head had been severed at the neck. 

It was dreadful. 

The confusion mixed with the anger and Lucy acted more from a sense of righteousness rather than long term planning. Stripping off her sweater, she wrapped his head in it and stole back upstairs. 

“What happened? Did you see him?” Any demanded in a whisper when Lucy emerged. She was all but dancing on the spot. “What’s that?” she said when she finally saw Lucy’s sweater. 

“Be quiet. Grab some candles and wolfsbane and celery seed from the herb closet.”

“Why? What _is_ that?”

“We’re raising the dead.”

***

They went to one of the parlours upstairs and locked the door. While Amy fetched supplies, Lucy lit a fire in the marble fireplace and began to boil water in a small cauldron. She yanked a side table over to the side of the fire and gently placed Ian’s head atop it. 

The room would afford them the most privacy, but it seemed an unlikely candidate for the amount of witchcraft they were about the practice. Upholstered floral couches and chairs in shades of royal blue around a coffee table, all sat neatly beneath an ornate ceiling. The plastered walls were incredibly busy, covered with landscapes and prints of flowers and trees.

When Amy returned with cloth bags filled with herbs, overflowing in a basket, they lit three fat candles. Lucy transferred coals from the fire to a long, flat bowl. Onto these, she began to scatter herbs. Heavy curls of smoke rose and eddied the room. It smelled heady and acrid. Amy sneezed. 

The fire cast long shadows and they had to squint to read the spell book. 

This kind of casting did not come with exact proportions or clear steps. It was more complicated than that, depending on the spellcaster, the time of day and the time of year and the position of Jupiter in the sky. It had more to do with instinct and interpretation, so Lucy excelled. Amy preferred charms and potions. Things that could be measured and ordered, patterns that could be discerned.

As the cauldron began to simmer, Lucy began chanting and adding herbs. 

“Herbs of power, be my allies in this hour! Wolfsbane and celery seed, I call upon you in my need. Baneswort and valerian, do your work within. Thistle and mysteldene, fulfill my mean. Hellebore leaf seal this spell, and let the potion be made well.”

Lucy mixed the herbs for a long time. Amy added frankincense to the incense. It was probably an attempt to disguise the air, make it smoother. It did nothing but thicken the smoke that rose to the carved mouldings. 

The potion stank bitterly and Lucy began to feel prickles in her nose and wrist. It was ready. 

“Are you sure about this?” Amy asked suddenly, her voice low. She didn’t sound scared. Her eyes fluttered with intensity. Neither had ever cast this kind of magic before. Never so secretly. If their mother or the rest of the coven found out, there would be hell to pay. 

“Definitely.” They had been locked out of the inner sanctum and plans to bury their friend quickly was clearly another attempt to keep them locked out. “You can leave if you like.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Amy said bracingly. They smiled at each other. 

Removing the cauldron from the fireplace, Lucy placed it in the centre of the floor. She began to call on old powers and Amy joined in. “May the word-craft of our foremothers be with it. I call upon Morgana LeFay to guide us that the lips this potion touched may speak through the veil. May the word-craft of Sycorax be in thee, brew that is in this cauldron, that the lips it touches may speak words of power.”

There was a glow to the steam slipping out of the cauldron. As it shimmered and swirled, Lucy let her fingers dance through the mist, shaping a sign which flowed and faded as she finished. 

“It’s done?” Amy asked breathless. She already knew the answer. She already had the cup ready. 

Dipping the cup into the cauldron, Lucy set it to her lips. Her throat constructed as it went down, but it went down. The liquid was beyond bitter. It felt like it took the inner lining of her mouth and throat with it as it plummeted into her stomach. A stabbing ache drifted into numbness as a thin sheen of sweat spread across her forehead and from the back her neck down her back. Hands trembling, she passed the cup to Amy, who drank with a grimace. 

They repeated this, passing the cup between them, until with prickling back, Lucy heard a whisper. It was deep and throaty, but faint, as it was coming from another room. 

“It’s his turn,” Amy realized, nodding to Ian’s head. She pressed the glass to his cold lips and titled a small stream of the potion in. The dark drink stained his pallid skin. 

The whispering grew a little louder and Lucy could pick out the odd word. It sounded like Latin. 

Amy let out a giggle, a noise that sounded so wrong in the smoky dimly lit room. 

“Can’t you feel that?” Amy whispered, suddenly serious.

“What do you feel?”

“Nothing!” Amy said. “Like I don’t have a body. But also cold. Don’t you feel it?”

“Not exactly.” It felt more numb to her, like she was in a clumsy drunken state. “Do you hear that?”

It sounded like singing. 

“No,” Amy said. “What’s happening?”

“We’re walking along a new path. The dead are near.”

Amy began shivering convulsively. 

Had she been in her right mind, Lucy would have made her leave. The potion had a queer effect on her. Instead, she called on Ian to speak the words of power. 

“Here me, Ian, my friend! I am calling to you now. Remember how we used to chop roots and herbs for the coven’s spell!”

With some prodding, Amy said her memory, “Remember how you let me skip school and took me to the movie theatre.” Her words were slurred.

They went on like that, exchanging anecdotes and stories about the man they had called their friend as well as their brother. Their hearts pounded and the room world around them, pulsing with smoke. 

_“I hear you_ ,” came the voice. 

White-grey lids slid open. Lucy stared into empty, glassy eyes. His swollen tongue began to move. 

“ _I hear you._ ”

“Ian,” Lucy said breathlessly. “What happened? How did you die?”

“ _My own doing,_ ” he rasped. 

“What? How? Why? What was the ritual for?”

“ _Join my brothers and sisters and swear a full blood allegiance to the coven_.”

With a start Lucy realized he was only answering the last question she put to him. She had to go slower, but she wasn’t sure how much time they had. 

Picking her words carefully, she asked, “How were you swearing your allegiance?”

“ _Place blood and soul into the quartz to complete the heptagon.”_

“Blood _and_ soul?” Lucy said incredulously. Blood pacts themselves were powerful enough. There was no reason to bind the soul unless you meant to enslave someone and take away their freewill. Most soul binds were symbolic, not actual. To do it to another witch… 

“ _Yes… I realized too late to stop… I had to stop them another way.”_

“Stop them how?”

“ _So they wouldn’t get my soul._ ”

“You didn’t know you were binding your soul?”

“ _No…_ ”

Lucy stammered, desperately trying to figure out what to ask next and how to ask it. How to find out a clearer picture. 

“You cut off your own head?” Amy said slowly, catching on quicker than Lucy.

“ _That wasn’t the original intent, but it was the result…_ ”

Lucy blanched. “I don’t understand.”

“ _I swore blood but no soul. I wouldn’t swear soul. I did it to stop them._ ”

“What was the heptagon for?” Amy asked, her voice sounding distant and small. 

“ _To join the other points and bind seven by seven by seven to supplant the old gods and take on the seven wonders._ ”

“The seven wonders? What, immortality, time travel and the like?” These magics weren’t forbidden so to speak, but they were rarely practised and only at a great price. If they were indulged too much… it was reckless. The degradation wasn’t just to do with the witch in question or their coven, but to the very plane of existence on which they practised.

“ _Yes, to practice the seven wonders like one snapped their fingers or hummed a tune._ ”

Lucy suddenly felt very cold. “To do away with magical laws. To take on infinite power.”

“ _To become gods_.”

Infinite power at the cost of blood and soul. At the cost of Ian’s life.

“But they didn’t finish it,” Amy said, “the heptagon, it’s unfinished?”

Lucy felt a sudden chord of hope strike deep within her. 

“ _No,_ ” Ian said, “ _but they will try again. Lucy, your birthday is soon._ ”

***

“We managed to return his head,” Lucy explained to Flynn, “but others, Emma, knew that something was wrong. They began to suspect. Because they were members of this heptagon, they shared a lot of powers… thoughts… I don’t believe my mother would have hurt me under normal circumstances but she wasn’t just _her_ anymore. It hadn't been for a long time.”

It was after dinner, the kitchen cleaned and polished, with leftovers in the fridge and scraps in the compost. Darkness had fallen and the strengthening winds brought the patter of rains. It was the kind of evening that made Lucy happy to be inside with Flynn. They retired to her small sitting room that barely had enough room for all of Lucy’s books and her couch, let alone two people, albeit snuggled up on it. He had wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, so close she could feel his breaths. 

She rested her head on his shoulder with something like relief and he started to stroke her hair.

“What happened?” Flynn asked.

“We lived in the house with my mother. The coven was always in and out. We weren’t sure who knew what was really happening and who would be sympathetic. If we asked the wrong person we would have been in even more danger. Emma suspected that something had changed. She had never liked me, but the second she became suspicious of me everything got worse. Amy and I couldn’t talk in private, we had difficulties casting spells without oversight. I thought at first she was just protecting the secret but I realized that she didn’t want me to be the seventh. It was her who had pushed for Ian over me. With him gone and my mother supporting me to take his place, Emma was getting angry.”

“Why?”

“We had birthright,” Lucy said. “Emma had to work and pull herself up but we were born into the coven’s house. It wasn’t fair, I admit, but knowing what I know now… It was resentment but it was also… it had to do with power. She saw us as being in the way to her getting more. In a power struggle with my mother, then she knew she couldn’t count on us. We weren’t in her corner and we weren’t there to support her. Thus, we were a threat. And entitled. But it was mostly that we were a threat.”

Flynn nodded slowly, as he absorbed this. “Did she cast you out or did you run?”

“I ran. My mother began trying to prepare me for the ritual and it was difficult to ward her off without admitting that we knew. We knew what she was doing was wrong, but… she was our family. They all were. We didn’t want them to try and break the laws of the universe for god-like powers, but we didn’t want to leave either. It was all we’d ever known.”

“But you did leave,” he said. 

She nodded. “I couldn’t keep her off, so I eventually admitted that I knew about the blood and soul allegiances and the heptagon. I lied and said that Amy had had nothing to do with it. I wanted to protect her.”

“What happened?”

“She got very quiet. Asked me to come down to the basement. I said I didn’t want to. She dragged me down. Thank god, Amy was out. She would have heard and come running. The members the inner circle, or heptagon, arrived shortly after. I don’t know how they knew exactly, but I think they must have been connected through thoughts. They knew everything by the time they arrived. 

“Emma wanted to kill me outright but couldn’t say as much. The six of them pressed upon me the importance of their goal. They kept talking about all the good they could do. They made it out to be altruistic, but I knew that wasn’t what it was about.” 

“It was about power,” Flynn said softly. His arm tightened around her. 

Lucy nodded. 

“How did you get out of there?”

“I lied. I pretended I agreed and then at the first opportunity, I ran. I… Amy is still there. I’d become a prisoner in my own home. My mother barely left me alone and when I was alone I was locked in my room. I hope Amy knew that I wasn’t really going along with it. That it was just pretend…” Lucy ran her fingers along her throat again. 

“I’m sure she does. You ran away!”

“But I left her there!”

“She knew you wouldn’t have done that if you had any other choice.”

She still had the urge to argue. She realized that she didn’t want him to be kind or understanding. She wanted him to blame her the way she blamed herself. Covering her face she let out a ragged sigh. 

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” Flynn said softly. Lucy let him draw her closer, leaning against his warmth and inhaling his earthy scent. 

“We don’t know that.”

“You don’t have to face Emma alone. We can banish her too.”

“If I keep banishing people, they’ll keep sending people. I can’t spend my whole life looking over my shoulder.”

“What are you going to do?”

It was the only thing to do, the one thing she’d run from. “Face them. Face Emma. Face my mother.” Lucy felt very small in the face of the immensity of her task. 

“Hey,” Flynn said, drawing her face up to look him in the eye. “You don’t have to face anyone alone.”


	6. A Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which, flynn and jiya and rufus meet and hang out, and a confrontation with lucy's mother grows inevitable

As September elapsed, slipping seamlessly into October, the sky became heavier with humidity and took on a permanent, grey cloudiness. The library grew more crowded and as midterms approached, Lucy actually had visitors during office hours. Her focus split, as she tried to keep track of classes, midterms, essays and her research project into quartz, heptagon and seven year cycles. She found herself missing her coven’s grimoires and the familiarity of spellcasting with her sister more and more. At times, she found herself wishing for that simplicity, that ignorance. 

Her days took on a new structure. In the mornings, she would rise with Flynn, have coffee and breakfast, then bike into campus to teach a 9:30 class then do some marking or lecture prep and share lunch with Jiya. 

Her afternoons were filled with meetings, lecture notes, and another class. She was back home by early evening to share a meal with Flynn and continued her studies into curses and blood oaths. Stacks of geology books joined the spell books and alchemy texts as Lucy delved into ruminations on goethite, cacoxenite, rutile, lepidocrocite, amethyst, clear quartz and smoky quartz. All the while, she looked over her shoulder. Concern and unease grew if she caught the sight of a red hair at the distance and heard a familiar laugh in the stairwell. 

She still wasn’t sure she believed what the coven was attempting was possible. The powers there were after were more mythic than a philosopher’s stone.

Regardless of what Lucy believed was possible, the coven believed it was and it had cost Ian his life. Lucy didn’t have the resources that they had, but as she pushed into the boundaries of spellcasting and the myths around the seven divine arts, she began to find whispers and hints. At first they were asides or tangents or footnotes. As she delved further into obscure and outdated materials, sending Jiya to a rare bookstore in Seattle twice, she began to find the bones of _something_ archaic. 

***

When it came to introducing Flynn to Rufus and Jiya, Lucy felt an unexpected nervousness. It felt necessary to bring two different parts of her life together, but not necessarily natural. With their meeting, there was a tinge of awkwardness that came from one man who often preferred silence to chatter, another who was new to this world and tended to ramble when confronted with silent uncertainty and a woman whose natural intelligence and adaptational ability tended to prepare her for most situations.

They all came over to her place for dinner. It was cramped, four people squeezing into a place that Lucy and Flynn sometimes knocked things into each other. With Lucy checking the oven and putting the finishing touches on the salad, Flynn leaned against the far wall, while Rufus occupied the doorway between the living room and kitchen and Jiya sat at the kitchen table. The awkwardness and tension was palpable, mediated only by mutual politeness and Lucy.

“So you’re a tree,” Rufus said by initial way of introduction.

Eyebrows raised, Flynn had remarked, “You’re not a lumberjack are you?”

Rufus snorted, “No, I’m an engineer and a programmer. I just mean you look very human is all.”

“You as well.”

“I’m also an engineer and a programmer,” Jiya piped up. “And a human,” she added as an afterthought.

“Is that how you two met?” Flynn asked.

“Being human?" Rufus asked.

"No, having similar occupation."

Sort of. We met at work,” Jiya said.

“I didn’t know that,” Lucy said. She had assumed they met in school.

“Yeah, we met at this start up trying to make a quick buck for school.”

“I’ll probably go back after school,” Rufus said. “The money was too good not to.”

“It would be nice to be in the city again,” Jiya agreed.

Lucy didn’t want to admit to being disappointed at the thought of their leaving. She quickly put the thought aside. That wouldn’t be for several months at least. At least until the end of the school year.

Flynn seemed to agree with them, “There’s not a lot that happens around here. Or well, that was before Lucy arrived…”

Rufus and Jiya laughed in agreement and Lucy felt a blush creep up her neck. While she felt embarrassed, it became the kickstart for the evening. An ease and familiarity began to creep into their conversation.

Lucy reacted with exasperation, but did secretly enjoy the teasing. It was nice to watch the three of them laugh and begin to share jokes, even if several were at her expense. It was nice to join them and to see the beginnings of a friendship take root and sprout. Most of all, it was nice to be so loved.

***

One evening, Lucy felt the exhaustion seeping into her bones. She lay on her back, the toad tucked into her hip, surrounded by papers, books, notes and translations. She heard her front door open and close and knew it was Flynn before he called her name. She couldn’t bring herself to respond. 

He rushed to her, her name a rasp in his throat. Lucy turned up to look at him. “It’s all a load of crap,” she told him. “There’s _nothing_ here.”

“Lucy,” he breathed before letting out a chuckle of relief. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

She blinked up at him. 

“I thought you were hurt or something,” he admitted in a small voice, as if he were embarrassed. 

“I’m sorry. I’m just so tired…”

Flynn settled in next to her, his body stretching out against hers. His mouth against her jaw, a hand on her side. “You need to rest. You can’t keep pushing yourself like this.”

“I’m running out of time and I’m getting nowhere.”

“That’s not true. We’ve picked our way through a lot of material.” 

He said “we” pointedly. _We_. He was right, but it wasn’t enough. Lucy was a perfectionist and used to picking through sources and texts, pulling strands until she unravelled mysteries and built narratives and histories. He was right, she was closer. It just didn’t feel like it was enough. It was _never_ enough. She hated that this thought came in her mother’s voice. She tossed her book aside and covered her face.

He began to nuzzle her, pushing his nose beneath her ear. 

“There’s still time,” he reminded her. She nodded.

***

Despite the near constant rain, as they entered October, Lucy’s mint patch withered and died. She knew the cause and for days she tensed herself, waiting for an attack at every corner she turned and new room she entered. Her neck took on an ache from her tense muscles, but no attack came. 

Lucy came to realize that because the fully fledged members of the coven were all linked through their allegiances and magic, when she had banished her mother, she had managed to banish all of them. The most Emma could do was rot her garden. 

That was to her. 

Jiya and Flynn and Rufus, they still lived in and occasionally left the town. 

***

When Jiya and Rufus were late to dinner, Lucy at first thought nothing of it. She herself was running late with all the cooking and cleaning. Preparing for company somehow always took longer than intended and there was always one more thing to cook and one more surface to clean. Flynn was happy to help, but his standard of cleanliness was a little lower than Lucy preferred. They had been busy bickering about what needed to be dusted and how often. 

“They’re not usually this late,” Flynn mused, glancing at the clock. He had been tentative about accepting his new place with her friends, but it was plain that he cared about them. 

Startled, Lucy realized that they were indeed thirty minutes late. An uncomfortable feeling prickles up her spine. 

“I’m going down to the road,” she said. 

“I’ll come.” Their was an eagerness to his voice and worry on his brow.

“No!” 

Startled, he stared at her.

“It’s fine,” Lucy lied with a smile. “I’ll just go check.”

He didn't look reassured, but he let her go alone. It was a grey evening and while it was very humid, the clouds staunchly held their cargo. Wrapping her arms around herself to protect against the cold, Lucy wandered up the drive to the road's edge. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and listened. 

It was raining somewhere nearby. The prickle on her spine grew more insistent and climbed down her legs and up her neck. It settled like large fangs into her scull. It shouldn’t have been raining, but it was. There shouldn’t have been light night striking reverently, like a blacksmith at an anvil, but there was. 

Emma was usually fire and brimstone. This wasn’t her. It was her mother. 

The realization left Lucy colder than any wind ever could. With a new sense of purpose and a new feeling of anger, Lucy centred herself. Hands balled into fists, teeth gritted, she began to feel the wind on her skin. She felt it in her skin. She let it flow through, whipping her hair around her face and tugging at her clothing. She could feel the ferociousness in the trees themselves, ripping off leaves and branches. Eyes closed, she could still see the whirling debris in the air. It spun around her like a tornado, as the sky, behind the clouds, took on a greenish hue. 

Sucking in a deep breath, as if to blow a bubble with chewing gum or a smoke ring, Lucy drew all the air from her lungs in a steady stream. It was stuck at first, like an eyelash to her fingertip, but she kept blowing. With another breath, she felt it wobble. She blew again. This time, she sent the storm south. 

Rufus and Jiya arrived half an hour later, babbling excitedly with some fear at the impossible storm that had them trapped on a rickety bridge. Lucy didn’t need to say anything for them to realize how much danger they had been in. They saw it in her face. Nor did Lucy have to tell them what was the cause. They too were acclimatizing to their new place in a world filled with magic. 

There was no sense of wonder for Lucy. Even her relief at her friends’ safety was embittered by the knowledge at how much danger they were in. Putting off confronting her mother to learn more no longer seemed wise. It was time to confront her. 

***

It was Flynn who suggested a strategy meeting, Jiya who brought the pizza and Rufus who lugged a giant whiteboard to Lucy’s cottage. The four of them made it cramped without the whiteboard, but Rufus insisted and Flynn thought it was a great idea. They leaned it against her bedroom door and crowded around the kitchen table, pizza slices and mugs of steaming tea before them.

Lucy was overwhelmed and uncertain as to where to start, not only because of the sheer enormity of the task before them, but of the eager faces of her friends and partner, all there to help her.

“We should start with what we need,” Rufus suggested, uncapping the marker. "Maybe make a mind map. Or a decision tree."

“To be left alone,” Lucy said automatically.

“Yes, but how do we accomplish that?” he asked.

“We can banish them permanently,” Lucy mused.

“We already have a protection spell and we’ve seen the limits of that,” Flynn said. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“I know she’s your mother,” Rufus began.

“Rufus,” Jiya warned, apparently knowing what was coming.

“But she was willing to enslave you and take away your freewill and kill us, so where are we on gross bodily harm?”

“Murder?” Flynn clarified. 

“Hey, you went there first, not me.”

“What were you suggesting, kneecapping her?” Flynn bit out sarcastically.

“There are still five more of them,” Lucy interrupted. “We can’t kill all of them and… I’d rather not kill my mother.”

There was a silence as they all considered this. Rufus looked a little chastened.

“Your friend,” Jiya began slowly, “Ian he made it so he wasn’t viable for the spell.”

“Through decapitation,” Lucy said.

“So instead of killing her mother, she kills herself?” Rufus said. “How is that any better?”

“I’m not saying that,” Jiya said. “I’m wondering if there’s another way to make it so Lucy can’t be used for the spell. Like going from halal to haram.”

Flynn seemed to like this point. “Why are you viable for the spell?” Flynn asked. “Is it just your birthday?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Lucy admitted. “But my research… From my research, I got the impression that it had to do with blood. Sharing my mother’s blood.”

“Where does the soul come in?” Flynn asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s possible it doesn’t until the ritual. It was when binding that that Ian fought back…” Lucy felt an unpleasant taste in her mouth, even after all the time she’d thought about it and relived the memories in her mind. 

“So, the starting point could be the blood?” Flynn said.

Lucy nodded slowly. “It probably is.”

“Can you change your blood?” Rufus asked, bewildered.

“No,” Lucy said. She paused for a minute. “But I can cut myself off from my mother’s.”

“How do you mean?” Jiya asked.

“It’s kind of like disowning. But with blood and magic and a lot of carnations. Like a lot of carnations.”

“What are those for?” Jiya asked eagerly.

“We’d anoint them with my blood and some oil and then set them on fire.”

“Okay, then,” Jiya said.

“Nothing like a little arson to really symbolize the end of the family home,” Rufus joked.

“Where would we get enough carnations?” Flynn asked. “It’s too late in the season to grow them.”

“We’d have to use a little magic,” Lucy said with a smile.

“Ah.” Flynn’s eyes glittered.

“That’s not my main concern, though,” Lucy said.

“What is?” Flynn asked.

Sge got up, and with some difficulty, fetched a book from her living room. “The spell that I’m thinking of…” She began to flip through the pages, rapidly scanning them as she went. “Has some unfortunate requirements regarding who needs to be present.”

“Please don’t say your mother,” Rufus said with a grimace.

Lucy found the page she was looking for and read it carefully.

“Would we—wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Jiya asked quietly. “Wouldn’t she try and stop you?”

“And also kidnap you?” Rufus asked.

“I don’t like this idea,” was all Flynn said, his lips a thin line and his eyes dark.

“To make it total,” Lucy said, “she would need to be in range.”

Everyone erupted in immediate protest.

“She already tried to _kill_ me and Jiya—” Rufus exclaimed.

“Isn’t there a _different_ spell to try—” Jiya said 

“It’s way too dangerous—” Flynn said coldly.

“Calm down!” Lucy had to yell. “We can take precautions.”

“There won’t be enough,” Flynn said. 

“It will take a certain amount of risk, no matter what,” Lucy said. “So none of you will be there.”

This elicited even more protest. Rufus’s hands waved and Jiya jumped up from the table. Flynn half-scoffed, “Like hell!”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t keep you all safe” Lucy said. “I’m not putting any of you at risk!”

“We’re not letting you do this alone,” Jiya said.

“We can help,” Rufus insisted.

“You can’t!” Lucy said. “If _anything_ were to happen to you—”

“And if anything were to happen to you!” Flynn cut her off. “There’s always going to be a risk and if you do it alone, without help, don’t you think that increases it astronomically?”

“And if you aren’t successful, doesn’t that mean your old coven has crazy, godlike powers?” Rufus added. “Don’t you think that is just as bad for the world?”

“Can’t you do another protection spell?” Jiya asked. “Maybe for us?”

They all stared at her, their boring into her with an intensity she wasn’t sure how to shoulder. She could tell that none of them were going to back down. They were in this, with her She felt her jaw set.

“Fine. But if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it my way and we’re going to do it to keep you all as safe as possible. Do you understand?”

Her eyes passed from each of them, one by one, as they all nodded, one at a time. They were in it together.

***

As the weeks passed with an unnerving speed, Lucy took a few sick days to get the plan started with Flynn and Rufus. They had use of the entire meadow, which needed its own microclimate to support the carnations. They initially planned on using Jiya and Rufus’s place to store the plants, but they soon ran out of room there. They ended up building a shed by Flynn’s tree for the overflow.

Lucy could burn the carnations at her cottage and Rufus and Jiya could burn those at Flynn’s spot, something that didn’t excite the man—so much fire in his immediate vicinity. 

Lucy needed to find the right protection spell for both Jiya and Rufus and for the tree itself, as it represented his life force. He also didn’t like the idea of Lucy facing Carol alone. Lucy’s main concern was not that she would be facing her mother alone, but that Emma would also be there. There was a high probability other coven members would come as well, but it was Emma who Lucy was truly worried about.

“I can take her,” Flynn assured her, but Lucy wasn’t as sure.

“I’d feel better if you were with Jiya and Rufus. Keeping them safe.”

“With a protection spell they would be okay. I’m more worried about you.”

Lucy could have laughed. “It’s _you_ that I’m worried about.”

“Trust me. I can handle myself.”

“Me as well.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. His head bent towards her, his eyes wide. Lucy looked up at him, her lips set firmly.

“Everyone needs backup,” he said.

“And in this scenario, that’s Rufus and Jiya.”

He didn’t like that and she could see it in his eyes. For a moment she thought he would keep pushing. But, setting his own lips into a line, nodded.

He did insist, after that, that unless Lucy issued some sort of signal, either fireworks in the sky or the sound of a specific bird, if she needed help handling her mother and Emma. But only if Rufus and Jiya were okay, Lucy countered.

With that agreed upon, the last concern was to summon her mother after the protection spell had been laid for Rufus, Jiya, and Flynn, after the carnations were anointed and ready, and after the ouroboros protection spell had been separated.

Rufus had been against summoning, but as Lucy pointed out, they didn’t want to be waiting around for them to show up after breaking the initial protection spell on the property.

***

It was a cold, cloudy day by the time everything was in place. With the wind, the rain fell horizontally, splattering Lucy’s cottage windows loudly and chilling her to the bone when she stepped outside. A text message from Jiya let her know that she and Rufus were in position, but Flynn was nowhere to be seen. A brief moment of panic set into Lucy before she saw him, approaching her through the rows and rows of carnations of her meadow.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I wanted to see you before…”

They had a brief moment of silence before Lucy pulled him into her arms. She tucked her head under his chin and he pulled her tightly into his chest.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she said. “I don’t know if I could bear it.”

“You won’t lose me.”

She couldn’t tell him that he didn’t know that, not really. “They’re dangerous.” 

“I know,” he said. Pulling away slightly, he still kept her in his arms but looked down her softly then. “This won’t be my first fight with witches. I doubt it will be my last.”

“I hate putting you in danger,” Lucy said.

“It’s my choice. I choose you.”

A warmth set into Lucy’s heart even in the cold and the rain, while a weight set into her shoulders. She didn’t know what was about to happen. Neither did he.

“No matter what happens,” he said. “I won’t regret any of this.”

Lucy tried a smile, but her face crumpled. All they could manage was one last kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only one more chapter to go, woot woot


	7. Downward, Into the Dirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontation and fire, a burning, devastating fire.

As the rain slowed to a steady drizzle and began to taper off, Lucy anointed the last of the carnations with her own blood and oil. With everyone in position, Lucy felt an anxious tension so deep in her stomach, she was worried that she would be sick. She wanted everything to be over, but she also wanted to crawl under her own bed and hide. Something about facing her mother made her feel like a child.

It wasn’t enough to break the protection seal. Lucy had to summon her, using her mother’s gift, the silver locket. She wanted it to take hours and never happen. She wanted it to take minutes and be done with. She wanted to see her mother to finish it. She wanted to see her mother because she was her mother. She missed her. She hated her.

Lucy wanted her to tell her that it was alright and it was over. Lucy knew that that would never happen.

The time came before Lucy was ready, but then, she doubted that she would ever be ready. Not truly. Two of them came from the road, crossed up the driveway and stopped a dozen feet away, on the edge of the meadow. 

Lucy felt her mother approach before she saw her. Emma was with her, her hair slicked back into a ponytail, a raincoat buttoned to her throat. She looked severe, but not as severe as Carol, whose attempt at a smile looked more like a grimace.

“Lucy, I hope you’ve called me because you’ve seen sense.” Carol spoke as if Lucy had called her on the telephone. As if this were a simple conversation.

Emma scoffed. “Let’s not delude ourselves, Carol.” At least Emma was thoroughly stuck to reality.

“Is Amy okay?” Lucy demanded, unable to hold herself back. 

“Of course she is! I would never hurt either of you,” Carol said. 

Lucy could plainly see that Emma was another story. 

“We hardly have time for niceties,” Emma said coolly. “We’re on a very tight schedule and you can either come willingly or we can drag you out.”

“Tight schedule?” Lucy echoed. “If you’re so desperate for power, why don’t you get someone else.”

Exasperated, Emma turned to Carol. “She doesn’t understand. The entirety of the power _hinges_ on her and she doesn’t _get_ it.” Her voice was nothing short of acidic. 

“It has to be you Lucy,” Carol explained. “There were other candidates but they had to be the right age in the right season, turning forty-nine on the pattern of seven. And you’re my daughter. We’re blood. I opened the circle and now you must close it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Each person, each member of the circle, had to turn forty-nine, seven years after the last person has. The pattern must hold to properly form the heptagon and complete the spell.”

Realization dawned on Lucy. “You’ve been planning this since I was a baby.”

“It’s your birthright.”

Even in her shock, Lucy could see how little Emma cared for this revelation. She must despise it. All her hard work, intelligence, and natural talent and it was when her _birthday_ that decided her fate. 

“And what was Amy? An accident? A spare?”

“Your sister! Please, Lucy, come back. Come back to when we were happy.”

To go back to before… Before Ian died and she knew everything. That had been what Lucy wanted—once.

Lucy shook her head. “There’s no going back.”

There was no bitterness in her voice. It was a factual statement absent of the pain she first felt when she fled. It didn’t even have the same tinge of loneliness. She had her people. She had her place. What her mother wanted for her— _from_ her—was so far beyond her own desires that it was alien. It didn’t feel like her mother, or rather not the way she used to think of her.

Lucy had always thought of Carol as pushy, but wanting what was best for her and Amy. She never thought of her as maniacal or power-hungry. She’d always trusted her judgment, trusted in the belief—no, the _assumption_ —that her mother knew what was best. Lucy knew her own way by then. 

“Enough talk,” Emma said sharply. 

For once Lucy agreed.

Still, she was caught off guard when a behemoth of fire shot directly at her. She didn’t even bother with a block, she just dove out of the way. 

“Careful, Emma,” Carol chastised. 

“The time for pleasantries is _over_! This needs to be done tonight.”

Fire surrounded her, burning an electric orange. As Lucy found her footing, a new feeling of dread settled into her bones. _Tonight_. They were on the clock. The carnations may not have even been necessary. If she’d merely _waited_ them out…

There was not time for these thoughts now. She could feel the wind change, the air crackle with electricity. Her mother was calling a storm. Emma was going to shoot more fire at her. 

Feeling the oak leaves rip from their branches, Lucy reached into the dirt and felt for its twining roots. As Emma tried to set off another blast, a root crackled to the surface and threw her sideways.

“Oh that’s cute,” Emma mocked. “Green magic. Like a Disney fucking princess.”

Lucy hit her with another root. Spitting with rage, Emma turned and set the entire tree on fire. 

“Now! Isn’t that better?” Emma said, but it was mostly to herself.

Lucy felt the stinging in her flesh. It was easy to siphon off some of Emma’s fire and to cast it into the field of carnations. Smoke burned her eyes and throat and she looked around desperately. She felt the bonds linking her to her mother weaken, but remain intact. All this fire, Rufus and Jiya should have set the fire with Flynn by now. Flynn should have been there by now. 

It wasn’t enough. Lucy looked around wildly, her eyes burning from the smoke.

“Looking for your boyfriend?” Emma’s tone was mocking. 

With more preparation, Lucy blocked another incoming fireball.

“What did you _do_?” Lucy wasn’t even looking at Emma. She stared wildly at her mother. 

“You need to understand that there is nothing here for you, Lucy,” her mother said, her tone sickening calm, disgustingly patient. 

“What did you do?” she shouted again. 

She didn’t block the next ball of fire and this time it hit her square in the chest. She flew off her feet, landing hard on her back. The wind knocked out of her, she gasped for air. Turning her head she could see her cottage, ablaze. Emma’s witch fire spread like the entire thing was made of tinder. 

Standing over her, Emma said with a terrible smile, “That’s the thing about trees. They’re basically kindling.”

With a scream deep in her chest Lucy pushed back at her with all her power. This time it was Emma who flew off her feet, landing in a heap several yards away. Lucy dragged herself up, her bones aching. a trickle of blood slid down the back of her neck. Her eyes burned and watered and not from the smoke as she approached Emma. 

Lightning crackled down between them, causing a vicious jolt that Lucy felt in each of her joints. 

“Lucy stop this!” Carol shouted, her voice echoing against the cold dark sky. 

Lucy turned to her mother slowly, a new sense of rage bubbling deep inside. An immense loss of control was brewing. 

“Why couldn’t you have left me _alone_?” Lucy screamed, her voice cracking. 

“Stop,” Carol said again. “Think. You can bring him back. You can bring Ian back. You can bring back anybody who you lost! With all this power, anything is possible.”

“I don’t want power! I never did!”

“Yes, you did! How do you feel when you raised Ian? With dark magic! With power! Think about it. Didn’t it feel good? Didn’t it feel right?”

Lucy stopped, staring at her mother. Carol’s hair whipped around her wilfully, her eyes burned bright and there was a smile that turned Lucy’s stomach. Lucy glanced around her wearily. In her periphery she could see Emma remained still. The carnations had burned down to blackened ash. The light from the moon and fire illuminated the meadow and cast smoky shadows. 

“No one is meant to have that kind of power. There are limits for a reason.”

“Oh really? You wouldn’t use it? Not to make the world better, not to save your love, not to save your friends.”

“What did you do?”

“What I had to! To make you see sense.”

“No! You didn’t have to do _any_ of this! You could have left me alone!”

“Lucy,” Carol said, her voice adopting a new softness, “you’re my daughter. We are bound together. You are bound to all of us. To this.”

“Why can’t you let this go? Let me go!”

“We have been working for this for decades!” Thunder roared. Lucy could feel the crackle of electricity across her skin. “All of us! For you and for all of us. And for you to _throw_ it away!”

“I never wanted this! You never _asked_ —”

“And what do you want? To live in some tiny, meaningless town, in a shack, bathed in your own mediocrity? A tiny meaningless life? Lucy, you could be so much more!”

“It’s not tiny or meaningless! It’s the happiest I’ve been in years! Living without you, without you breathing down my neck making demands, pushing me into jobs and spells and projects, I never wanted! I’ve never felt freer.”

“You wanted—”

“No, _you_ wanted! Everything I ever did, I did to please you and I’m done! I don’t care what you want! I want to be left alone and live life in a tiny town in my shack—” she stared back at her burning home. “I never told you how suffocated I always felt living with you. But I did. I couldn’t breathe. I can’t stand the idea of being bound to you for an eternity.”

Heart pounding, Lucy started to turn back, when suddenly she remembered Emma. Whirling back around, heart in her throat, the ground was empty. Lucy had just enough time to throw her arms up in defence, as an immense curtain of green flame shot at her. 

Knees bents and arms straining, Lucy held the shielding spell, as flames split around her. Like water hitting a rock, it pushed around her and kept going. Emma must have been furious, to keep so much power going in one blast. 

Lucy could smell her hair burning and felt the sharp pain of blisters forming across her arm. She felt herself scream rather than heard it. Her ears rang, her eyes burned, but she didn’t let go. Neither did Emma. 

Faintly, she could hear her mother shouting. She didn’t pay it any kind of attention until the green flame stopped as suddenly as it began. Collapsing into a heap, Lucy’s mind swam from pain and exhaustion. She couldn’t keep going—not like this. Not against the both of them, without Flynn. She had to get away. Through blurry eyes, like looking at the bottom of a muddy river, Lucy could see her mother shouting at Emma. Emma’s hair was smoking and her clothing was singed. Was that from witch fire or her mother’s lightning?

“That’s not the way!” Carol sounded like she was miles away.

“You heard her yourself! There’s no convincing her. The only way to get her power is to consume her.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“If you don’t have the strength—”

With sudden clarity, the words “consume her” took hold. Lucy remembered what Ian had said. After he’d figured out their plan, he’d cut off his own head rather than be taken. Could she do the same?

She stumbled to her feet, eyes on the forest. She may not need to. They were fighting and already on a time crunch. Maybe if she could get to Rufus and Jiya and the other carnations—

Still breathless, a new feeling of terror plunged into her stomach. She sprinted for the woods. 

Lucy had a head’s start of few feet , but Emma and Carol soon noticed. Shouting, hexes flew at her. She barely had the strength to throw up a shielding spell. One hex missed and the next shattered the shield on impact. Lucy stumbled but kept going. Her magic was fading in her stress and exhaustion. She threw herself into a zigzagged run, making her a harder target to hit. As she hit the tree line, a blast missed the spot she had been moments before, hitting a tree with an explosion of fire. 

She had cover, but she could still hear them coming, shouting at each other. 

She needed a plan. She couldn’t just hide. Emma would burn the entire forest to the ground. The carnation spell hadn’t been enough. Maybe she needed to focus more. Maybe she needed a new direction. Her mother wasn’t going to let go easily. Lucy hadn’t realized that she had been hoping she would.

Suddenly, Lucy remembered the river by the graveyard. She had home court advantage. They wouldn’t know what she was going to do. 

Lucy changed her course and kept running. She couldn’t let her mind dwell on Flynn or the graveyard. She couldn’t let her mind conjure images of what her mother had done. Or Emma. It had probably been Emma, burning— _No._

Lucy’s chest and throat burned. She couldn’t dwell. She couldn’t think. She had to plan what she would do when she got to the river. Drown them? Was there even enough water?

In the dark, in her panic, Lucy didn’t realize how close she’d gotten until she fell, with a shout, into the ravine. Rolling through the underbrush, she came to a soggy stop. She lay there for a moment, letting her heart slow before pulling herself onto shaky legs. 

What to do—ice, water? It would stop Emma, but water was an affinity for her mother. Lucy's mind went back to the graveyard. She could raise—No. Flynn would never forgive her if she raised the dead, any of them. Besides, she probably wouldn't have enough energy for that. She needed to draw her power _from_ something, to counterbalance Emma and Carol. She didn't have enough power or energy left in her on her own.

She stared up at the starry sky. A thousand glimmering dots, straining across light years, over the treetops. 

She could use the trees. Fire could burn and water could drown, but Lucy could go to ground, to the roots. With shaking hands, she took off her shoes and settled her feet into the cold, damp earth. 

She put her mother aside, she put Emma aside, and with a deep ache in her chest, she put Flynn, Rufus and Jiya aside. She took a deep breath in, held it for a long time. When she released, her lungs collapsing, she slid downward, into the earth. 

*****

*****

*****

There was a rush of cold, as the earth enclosed upon Lucy. Barely had she shivered, before her skin numbed and then warmed. She felt the roots of a tree encircle her. She eased into it.

At first, she heard nothing. The silence of an abyss. It was a dark, ageless world.

Then, she heard the shifting of an earthworm through the dirt. Then she heard the crunch of a mole, chewing some dirt. She felt the curl of roots in soil, extending downward and upwards towards open air and sky. 

She concentrated on that, open air and sky. She could feel the upper world, but only by the river. She couldn’t sense her mother or Emma. She needed another vantage point. 

Lucy reached out, blindly at first, grasping for something in the dirt, before she could sense the thin strands. Mycelium. A mass of branching hyphae, extending for miles. She could see for miles. 

Like Theseus following the red thread of Ariadne through the labyrinth, Lucy followed the branching network of tree roots and mycelium strands. 

She could sense the panic of animals at the fire. The uncertain flight of birds. And the rushed footfalls of Emma and Carol. 

They were fighting, still with words, but Lucy could sense the growing tension, the immense bubbling fury. Carol was always too lenient, Emma thought. Always preferred and spoiled her useless daughter and here was the downfall of the whole coven. Emma should have put a stop to it years ago. Smothered Lucy in her sleep. 

Carol thought that she could still get to Lucy. Make her see sense. She needed a bit more convincing, that was all. Maybe a bit of mind manipulation. She didn’t need for her heart, brain, or soul to be consumed. Perhaps Amy could convince her. 

_Amy._

No, Emma thought, Lucy was only a small, pathetically insignificant part of the problem. The real problem was Carol. Besides. It would be easier to consume Lucy, after she’d consumed Carol. 

_No._

Through instinct rather than thought, Lucy reached out and ripped Emma back. She kept yanking and pulling, root to branch to root, feeling the occasional singe as Emma fought back, until she was thrown clean out of the forest. It was just Carol left. 

Lucy needed to face her alone. 

She pulled in the opposite direction. Branches and roots pulled Carol backwards, but she didn’t fight. She knew it was Lucy. 

It took some effort to rise from the earth, to let go of the soft sounds and shapes of the life below. When she did, she was face to face with her mother. 

“I’m glad you saw sense—”

“I want you to go,” Lucy interrupted. 

“Lucy—”

“I don’t want to hear it. You’re not listening to me and I’m done telling you. Just go.”

“Lucy!”

She pushed her away and kept pushing. Not just on Carol, not just through the woods, but on the bonds that linked them together.

She didn’t need to burn or tear them. She’d outgrown them and just had to keep moving.

This time Carol fought, with an explosion of wind and water. Lucy felt the uprooting of trees and the disturbance in the soil. She didn’t let up though. Winds blew harshly and Lucy had to fight to keep her footing. She could hear her mother shouting as dirt, branches and rocks hurtled between them. Lucy locked her knees. Still, she pushed.

Carol was hurled out of the forest and Lucy pushed her further still, past the backroads, beyond the highway, taking down signs and ripping up the black top as they went. It was going to look like the county was hit with an extremely localized hurricane. 

Lucy didn’t stop pushing until her mother was out of the county. The power of the coven on the verge of the infinite, against the power that Lucy bent from the earth. They were so bent on extraction that they missed the exchange.

Lucy stumbled with relief. Emma was still behind her but she could hold her off more easily from a distance. She knew the land better. She knew the trees. 

The rain began to pick up as a feeling of relief halted. She thought of Flynn and Jiya and Rufus. Desperately, she reached out, tracing trees and mycelium until she found his section of the forest—until she found him. He was still rooted, but burned. Around him, she could trace the feet of Jiya and Rufus and—her heart leapt in her chest—Amy.

A moment before she could barely stand. She began to sprint. Were they okay? They had to be okay. 

Heart pounding and lungs burning, Lucy ran until long after she thought she’d barely be able to stand and ran the last bit until she saw four figures. They spotted her before she had to shout. 

“Lucy!” Amy yelled, her voice a miracle to Lucy’s ears. She sprinted towards her and when they met, it was all Lucy could do not to collapse. She threw her arms around her sister, as her lung sputtered. Soon, she wasn’t gasping for being out of breath, she was gasping for tears. 

“Oh, Amy, I missed you!”

“I missed you, too. I was so worried!”

“I’m sorry I left you!”

“I’m here now.”

Lucy pressed her fingers into her sister’s hair and breathed in her scent. Raspberries. It was so wonderful to hold her. It was more than a relief. She felt like she was floating. Like the only gravity there was, was in Amy’s arms.

She heard slow footfalls and looked up. Rufus, Jiya and Flynn looked a little worse for wear, but alive. Rufus held a rag to a cut on his forehead, while helping Jiya limp towards them. They both bore burn marks and singed clothing. Flynn hung back, but she could smell wood smoke from where she stood. 

“You guys,” she gasped, throwing an arm around each of them. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’ve had worse,” Jiya said, giving her sore bones a squeeze. 

“I haven’t, but I don’t think I’ll ever be at that level again,” Rufus joked. “Something to tell the grandkids to buck up about.”

“I’m guessing it’s over?” Jiya asked. She sounded scared and Lucy’s heart hurt at the thought.

Lucy nodded. “Emma is around somewhere but I doubt she’ll be bothering us for now. We’ll have to banish the coven again though. But they’ll fade away. I’m useless to them. I’m not sure I’d rule out revenge, but…”

“It’s over,” Jiya finished, a smile pulling at her lips.

“It’s over,” Lucy said. She felt a smile of her own form. “What happened to you all? Mom and Emma said that they…” she couldn’t bear to finish. 

Her eyes passed over the bruised and battered form and landed on Flynn’s grim face. He hadn’t said a word. She stood hesitantly for a moment before approaching. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, his mouth a line. Slowly, he reached for her and with a wave of relief, she threw herself into him. 

“I was so scared that they’d—that you—I’m so glad you’re okay.”

She felt him nod. He pressed a firm and long kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve got you,” he told her, his hand running up and down her back. He breathed a sigh of relief into her ear, one she felt deep into her soul.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

“I know.” He let out a hoarse laugh that could have been a groan. “We’re okay,” he assured her.

“What happened?” she said. She pulled away to look up at him, her hands resting on his arms and his hands resting on hers. Her eyes were wide.

“I wanted to come and help,” he said. “We were going to come and help, but they were expecting that and…”

“Did they try to set you on fire?”

“They _did_.” He flinched slightly with the words. 

A feeling of rage and grief twisted in Lucy’s chest. “Flynn, how are you—”

“Jiya and Rufus were here to help—”

“Fat lot of good we did,” Rufus grumbled. 

“—and Amy was here to save the rest of the day. But only between, say, noon and eight. We had the morning covered,” Flynn said with a slight smile.

“Always happy for an assist,” Amy chipped in. 

“We don’t have to discuss this now,” Flynn said firmly. “You looked dead on your feet. You’re covered in dirt.”

“I spoke to the trees.”

For a moment, Flynn’s brows furrowed and then he laughed, a sound as rich and warm as coffee. For the first time, Lucy started to feel like everything was okay. “I thought I heard you,” he whispered as if he were telling her a secret.

Sighing, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, dirt and all. They didn’t have to be apart anymore. Leaning forward, she laid her cheek into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her tight again. It felt so safe and so warm. A fire burning in a hearth. Birdsong in the morning. A sign of home.

They stood like that for a long moment, until Rufus cleared his throat.

“Am I totally misreading it or is it time for some beer?”

Lucy laughed and Jiya groaned. “I recommend we wait until sunrise to give proper time for Emma to disperse and to recast the barrier spells. And it would have to be at your place. They kind of burned my place down.”

“Christ,” Amy muttered. 

“Bastards,” Rufus groaned. 

“Oh Lucy, I’m so sorry,” Jiya said. 

Flynn squeezed her. 

“It’s okay,” Lucy said. And it was. Reaching over, she threw her arms around Amy again. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me too, sis.”

“I have a lot to show you.”

“I’ve been waiting since you ran.”

She pulled Lucy into another hug and neither could stop smiling.

Even without her mother, even without her coven or her cabin, she still had her people and she still had herself. As they started to amble back to the main road, Jiya leaning on Rufus, and Lucy arm and arm with Flynn and her sister, her face started to hurt for smiling, but it was the best kind of hurt. A joyful pull deep in her soul. She was already home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welll, I hope you enjoyed this! I've been thinking about an epilogue, but tbh i have some other projects i want to work on first.


End file.
